What is it?
A replica of the racks used at the Tower of London under the Tudors and Stuarts. Despite the popular emphasis on the grisly aspects of the Tower, torture was used rarely, and only when other methods of persuasion had failed.
Who were its victims?
Cuthbert Simpson was the first person we know about who was stretched by the rack during the reign of Mary I (1553-38). He was tortured because he was a Protestant.
Victims were attached at wrist and ankles, and the ropes drawn slowly more taut until the pain became too agonising to bear.
Guy Fawkes too was probably a victim of the rack in 1605 during questioning about the Gunpowder Plot to blow up James I at the opening of Parliament. He signed confessions before and after being questioned at the Tower and his deterioration in his handwriting suggests he was tortured.
