Female disguise was one of the many methods employed to compass escape by the imprisoned Jacobites after the ’15, but not always successfully. Mr. Barlow of Burton Hall tried it among others. In the first instance a crazy woman, Elizabeth Powell, well known in Westminster Market, came to Mr. Barlow with a whole suit of female apparel, but “he, fearing it might be a trick, or that he might fail in the attempt, discovered her.” A week or two later, as if inspired by the proposal, Mr. Barlow did make the attempt. Close shaved and neatly dressed in female clothes, he came to the gate with a crowd of ladies who had been visiting their Jacobite friends, hoping to pass out unobserved with the others. But the turnkey--escapes had been very frequent, and all officials were on the alert--caught hold of him, turned him about, and in the struggle threw him down. The rest of the women cried out in a lamentable tone, “Don’t hurt the poor lady; she is with child;” and some of them cried, “Oh, my dear mother!” whereupon the turnkey, convinced he had to do with a lady, let him go. Mr. Barlow, says the account, acted the part to the life. He was padded, his face was painted red and white, and he would certainly have made his escape had not Mr. Carleton Smith, one of the special commissioners appointed to ensure the safe custody of the rebels, strictly examined the would-be fugitive and detected his disguise. Mr. Barlow offered Smith ten guineas to let him go, but instead of accepting the bribe, Mr. Smith carried his prisoner just as he was, in female disguise, before the Court then sitting at the Old Bailey. Mr. Barlow declared that the clothes had been brought him by his wife. “The Court,” goes on the account, “was very well pleased to see him thus metamorphosed, but ordered him to be put in heavy irons, and the clothes to be kept as a testimony against him.”