Today in History—March 22: The Most Ingenious Prison Escape

On this day in 1621, the man who would later be called the “father of international law” was smuggled out of prison disguised as a chest of books.

It was his wife’s idea—and it worked.

Dutch legal scholar and political thinker Hugo Grotius was precocious to the point of legend. He entered university at age 11 and was an advocate at The Hague at 16. At 24 he became attorney general of three provinces in the Dutch Republic. This brought salary, status, and trouble. The next year, 1608, he married Maria van Reigersberch. That decision would later save him.

Religious tensions were running high in Holland. A theological dispute hardened into a political struggle. Hugo erred on the side of religious tolerance, while accepting state meddling in church affairs, positions that pleased no one in power. When Prince Maurice of Orange seized control of the country, Hugo was among those arrested. He was sentenced to life in prison at Loevestein Castle in 1618.

After almost two years, Maria—who was allowed to visit—noticed that the guards had grown careless. Her husband, an insatiable reader and writer, had books delivered often in a large chest. The guards no longer inspected it. (See yesterday’s edition on Alcatraz for worse imprisonment conditions.)

Maria hatched a plan with the help of her maid, Elsje van Houwening: Hugo would hide in the chest and be conveyed out of prison. Hugo hesitated, but when the day came, he climbed in. Elsje accompanied the chest to the boat.

As they loaded it, the guards noted how heavy it was. Elsje commented, “It is the Arminian books.”

“Perhaps it is the Arminian himself,” the guard joked.

The chest made it to the house of a friend. But the friend hesitated, so his wife stepped in and freed Hugo. Disguised as a mason, Hugo accompanied the woman’s brother (an actual mason) to a boat and sailed to Antwerp.

Maria stayed behind at the castle to maintain the ruse, turning on the light in Hugo’s study at the usual time. When the escape was discovered, Hugo was already writing to diplomats from safety. Maria was not punished, and the couple reunited in Paris.

There Hugo continued his life’s work, writing on natural law, the rules of war, and the freedom of the seas. The man who crawled out of that chest would shape how nations justify power for centuries to come.