Lord Nithsdale's Escape. (Headed:) 'A letter from the Countess of Nithsdale to her sister the Right Honourable Lucy Herbert Abbess of the English Augustine Nuns at Bruges containing a circumstantial Account of the Earl of Nithsdale's escape from the tower'.

Bookseller Notes

A fair copy of a letter from Winifred Maxwell, Countess of Nithsdale (c. 16801749) to her sister, in which she recounts the plan by which she masterminded the escape of her husband, Lord Nithsdale, from the Tower of London in 1716. William Maxwell, 5th Earl of Nithsdale, was a Scottish nobleman who took part in the Jacobite rising of 1715. He forfeited his titles and was imprisoned, but escaped from the Tower the evening before his scheduled execution, disguised as his wife's maid. Recounted in full here, some of the details of the prison break are frankly extraordinary; that Lady Maxwell successfully hid his 'long beard' with white make up and rouge, and that once she had smuggled him out she returned to his chambers and made fake conversation, performing half the pretended dialogue in a deep voice.The couple travelled to the continent, and it was from there that Lady Maxwell sent this report to her sister Lucy Herbert (1669-1744), who was the abbess of the so-called English Convent at Bruges. The original letter was dated April 16th 1718, and this copy made almost a century after the events it recounts, in 1813. There is a small square of brown cloth pinned to the verso of the first leaf, with the implication that this was cut from the costume Nithsdale used to escape. The episode - in this epistolary format - was published shortly after this copy was made, appearing in the Scots Magazine and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany in 1816. Widely reproduced, the story remained a cornerstone of romance and daring for much of the nineteenth century, appearing in compendiums of similarly audacious escapes, and in several artistic representations including one by Emily Mary Osborn (1834-93). In 1848 the family was restored to their seat of Terregles.