The Escape of Joan of Leeds - V G Lance

She died.
They buried her.
She walked out.

York, 1318.

At twelve years old, Joan of Leeds is placed inside the walls of St Clement's Priory - a life chosen for her, not by her. Eleven years later, she makes a decision no woman of her time is meant to make.

She refuses.

In a world governed by obedience, Joan constructs an impossible escape: she fakes her own death, is buried in consecrated ground, and vanishes into the wider world.

But freedom is only the beginning.

Hunted by the Church and denounced by William Melton, Joan does something even more dangerous than running - she fights back. Not with force, but with intellect. Using the Church's own law, she challenges the very vows that were meant to bind her for life.

What follows is not just an escape, but a reckoning.

A story of defiance, identity, and survival, The Escape of Joan of Leeds is inspired by real historical records - a rare case where a woman rewrote her fate in a world designed to deny her one.

She was real.
She was here.
She escaped.