Tweed’s corrupt practices were exposed by investigative journalists such as those at The New York Times and he was regularly attacked by Thomas Nast, the political cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly whose cartoons helped to identify Tweed in Spain.

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.

By the time the authorities re-established control on the morning of 4 May, two prison officers and three perpetrators lay dead.

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.