Grotius was permitted to have books sent to him in prison, and these were transported in a large chest. Over time his guards became less vigilant regarding the chest’s contents which led his wife and maid-servant to propose a plan to smuggle him out by hiding him inside it.

Over three volumes Anne Frank recorded the relationships between the Frank family, the Van Pels family, and her father’s friend Fritz Pfeffer with whom they shared a confined hiding place in the ‘Secret Annexe’ above her father’s warehouse building.

The couple were declared King and Queen after agreeing to the Declaration of Right. Their coronation took place on 11 April.

On the 22nd March 1621, Dutch legal scholar Hugo Grotius – also known as Hugo de Groot – escaped imprisonment in Loevestein Castle concealed inside a book chest.