THE TOWER OF LONDON
If anyone were staying in London for the first time, what do you suppose
he or she would want to see most? It would depend on the character and
age of that person. If it were a boy, he would be almost sure to say the
Zoological Gardens. A girl might choose Madame Tussaud's. But besides
these there are many other things that could be chosen--St. Paul's
Cathedral; the British Museum; Westminster Abbey. Also places of
entertainment, like Maskelyne's Mysteries, where there is conjuring so
wonderful that, having seen it no one can believe the sight of his own
eyes. At Christmas time many of the large shops turn themselves into
shows, with all sorts of attractive sights to be enjoyed free, so that
people may be brought into the shop and possibly buy something. All
these things are attractive. But there is one thing not yet mentioned,
which is the best of all, and interesting to both boys and girls alike,
as well as to men and women. This is the Tower of London.
I am now going to imagine that you are staying with me on a visit, and
every day we will do something enjoyable, and go to see something fresh.
We could go on for days and days doing this in London, and not come to
the end of the sights. But the first thing to see, the very first, ought
to be the Tower, because it is one of the few old buildings left in
London, and there are so many stories connected with it they would make
a big fat book in themselves.
On the first morning of your visit to London you would get up in a
rather excited frame of mind, and be anxious to start off at once. That
would be as well, because if we are to go to the Tower it will take us a
long time to get there.
Before the west end of London was built the Tower was in the important
part of London. All that could then be called London clustered round it.
In those days, when the country was unsettled and enemies appeared
suddenly outside a town, and might burn and destroy houses, and steal
all that they could lay hands on, it was necessary to have a wall all
round the city. This wall was very strong and high, and could be
defended by men with spears and arrows. It ran right round the city on
three sides, and on the fourth was the river.
In the reign of William the Conqueror there was no strong castle or
palace for the King in London, but only an old fortress on one side of
this wall, the east side, quite near to the river. This fortress had
stood there for a long time. No one knew when it had been built. King
William ordered it to be pulled down, and in its place he caused a
strong castle to be built. Part of the city wall was pulled down to make
room for this castle, and so began the Tower of London.
If we, living in the West End, want to get to the Tower, we must take an
omnibus or train and go right through the City until, at the place where
the City and the East End meet, we shall find the Tower.
It is a very fine building, with a great square tower in the middle.
Round it are the gardens, and round the gardens, again, there is another
line of buildings, which have smaller towers set here and there upon
them at intervals. Circling round the outermost walls is a huge, deep
ditch, as big and broad as a river. This was once a moat full of water.
The water from the Thames ran into it and filled it, and it formed a
strong barrier of defence for the Tower, and attacking forces would have
found it a difficult matter to swim across that water with the archers
and soldiers shooting down from the walls above, with flights of arrows
as thick as flights of pigeons. And, of course, the enemies would never
have been allowed to put a boat on the water, for the archers would have
shot them while they were doing it. In old times the kings who lived
here must have felt very safe with their huge thick stone walls and the
great rolling stream of gray water all round. The windows were made very
small, so that arrows could not get into them easily to wound the people
inside the rooms, and the staircases were of stone, very narrow, and
they wound round and round up into one of the towers. They were made so
because then, if ever the enemies did manage to get inside the Tower and
tramped upstairs, they would find that only one, or perhaps two, of them
could get up the steps together to fight, and the men who were guarding
the tower could keep them back for a long time. As I said also, the
gardens are inside the Tower, so the people who lived there could walk
safely in them surrounded by the great gloomy high stone walls.
[Illustration: ST. MARY-LE-STRAND AND BUSH HOUSE.]
Oh, how many stories that Tower has to tell! Every stone of it must have
heard something interesting. But saddest of all must have been the
groans and cries of sorrowful prisoners, for besides being the King's
palace, as I have told you, it was also a prison. That seems very odd to
us now. Fancy if we made part of Buckingham Palace, where the King
lives, into a gaol! But in old times palaces and prisons were often in
one building, partly because it was necessary for both to be very strong
and to resist force, and it was not easy to build two strong buildings
in one place, so they made one do for both. When William the Conqueror
died he had not finished his building, and William Rufus, his son, went
on with it. Rufus finished the square building in the middle, which has
four little corner towers, and this is called the White Tower, not that
it is white at all, though it may have been when first built. Now it has
been blackened by many centuries of smoke. It was not until the reign of
Richard Coeur de Lion that the moat was made, and by that time the Tower
had grown very much, and was a strong place. John, Richard's brother,
who tried to get the throne for himself while Richard was away fighting
in the Holy Land, knew that the stronger he could make the Tower the
better, for if he could hold it he would be King in London, and no one
could seize him and punish him. We shall hear something more about John
later. The moat was made when Richard was away in the Holy Land.
When we draw near we see the White Tower standing up above all the rest.
To cross the moat we have to go over a bridge, once a drawbridge--that
is, a bridge which could be drawn up and let down again as the people in
the Tower liked.
Close by the drawbridge was, until just before Queen Victoria's reign, a
place where lions and tigers and all sorts of wild animals lived. It
seems curious they should have been kept there, where they could not
have had any room to wander about, and when they were moved to the
Zoological Gardens it must have been much better for them. The animals
were here through the reigns of all the kings and queens of England,
from Henry I. to Queen Victoria. If we go to the front of the Tower,
which faces the river, we shall see a fine sight. There is the splendid
Tower Bridge that we read of before; there is the gray, glittering
river; and there are many ships and barges floating up and down on the
water.
Underneath our feet is a deep channel, now dry, where the river once ran
in to fill up the moat. It flowed under a great gloomy archway with a
gate, and when the river was running here everyone who came to the
Tower by water had to land at that gate. It has an awful name, and some
of the very saddest memories belong to it. It is called Traitor's Gate.
In those old days, when people used their river much more than we do
now, they owned barges, great boats covered with an awning, and when
they wanted to go from Westminster to the Tower they did not think of
driving, for the streets were narrow and badly paved, the roads between
London and Westminster quite dangerous; and they could not go by train,
for no one had ever imagined anything so wonderful as a train, so they
went by water.
When the prisoners who were in the Tower had to be tried before judges
they were taken up the river in barges to Westminster, where all the
evidence was heard, and then they were brought back again. How many of
them made that last sad journey and entered the Traitor's Gate never to
come out again! They had been to Westminster to be tried, feeling quite
sure something would happen in their favour, and they would be set free;
and then they had heard the sentence that they were to be beheaded! They
came back down the river, and the sunshine might be just as gay, the
water as sparkling, as when they went, but to them it would all seem
different. The journey was short, too short for a man who knew it was
his last! Then when they reached the Tower the barge would sail on up to
the Traitor's Gate, and the dark shadow of the heavy walls would fall on
the prisoner, and he would feel a chill at his heart as he stepped out
on to those cold gray stones.
Of some of those who suffered in the Tower you have heard. Sir Thomas
More landed here when he came in his barge from Chelsea, but we know
that he was too brave and good to feel much fear. Lady Jane Grey landed
here when her father and father-in-law brought her here, calling her
Queen; she came as a queen, but stayed here afterwards as a prisoner.
Did any warning tell her this when she stepped out of the boat?
Queen Elizabeth came here, too, when she was only a princess. Her sister
Mary was on the throne, and Mary feared that people would make Elizabeth
queen, so she sent her as a prisoner to the Tower. We know the very
words Elizabeth said as she landed, though nearly three hundred and
fifty years have passed since then. She exclaimed: 'Here landeth as true
a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed on these stairs, and before
Thee, O God, I speak it, having none other friends but Thee.' Then she
sat down on a stone, and said: 'Better sit on a stone than in a cell.'
And only the entreaties of her attendant moved her to get up and go on.
She was a prisoner for several years, and at first was not allowed to go
out of her cell at all. Afterwards, when she became Queen on Mary's
death, one of the first places she visited was the Tower, perhaps
because she felt pleased at being a Queen instead of a prisoner, and
wanted to enjoy the contrast.
There were many, many others who landed here, never to come forth again
as free men. Some died in imprisonment; some were beheaded; some
suffered for their crimes; some were innocent, but suffered because they
had aroused the anger of a jealous king. Some went into those walls to
suffer tortures worse than death--tortures of the thumbscrew and rack,
to make them betray the names of their companions. Some came here as
martyrs, because they believed in God, and thought the suffering of the
present time as nothing to the glory hereafter.
Having looked long at the Traitor's Gate, we can pass on into the Tower
and see what else is there.
The prisoners went sometimes from the Traitor's Gate to the Bloody
Tower, so called from the fact that it was in a room here Edward V. and
his brother were murdered by the order of their wicked uncle. The boys'
bones were afterwards found at the foot of a staircase in the White
Tower. The Bloody Tower was not always called this awful name; it used
to be known at first as the Garden Tower. In the Bloody Tower the Duke
of Northumberland, who tried to make Lady Jane Grey a queen, was
imprisoned before he was beheaded. He must have known he well deserved
his fate; but if he had any conscience he must often have felt very
miserable to think of Lady Jane and her young husband, his own son, who
would be likely to suffer for his fault too.
Very soon the dark walls beheld another prisoner, Archbishop Cranmer, a
martyr in Queen Mary's reign. Cranmer was not a strong man by nature,
and the long wearing imprisonment tried him so much that at last he gave
in to his enemies, and said he would renounce his faith. He thought then
he would be released; but no, he heard that he was to be burned all the
same. We can imagine the horror of the poor prisoner, who had denied his
religion and yet not saved his life. He realized then how weak he had
been, and, like St. Peter, no doubt he wept bitterly. However, when the
day came, and he was taken to Oxford to be burnt, he had recovered all
his strength of mind. He declared himself firmly a Protestant, and when
the faggots were stacked up round him and the fire lit, he held one arm,
his right arm, into the flames, saying it should burn first, as it had
signed his denial. He held it there until it was all burned away, and
died the death of a brave martyr.
Another well-known man was imprisoned in the Bloody Tower after Cranmer.
This was Sir Walter Raleigh, who, as a handsome, gay young man, had
attracted great favour from Queen Elizabeth. It is said that one day
when she was going to cross a puddle Raleigh sprang forward and flung a
beautiful cloak he was wearing over the mud as a carpet for her feet.
The cloak was very rich and handsome, as were the cloaks the nobles wore
then. Of course it was spoilt, and Elizabeth was much flattered by the
courtesy of the young man. She made him a knight, and he was raised to
great honour. He sailed across the seas and discovered new lands, and he
brought back tobacco and introduced smoking into England. When the
Spaniards attacked England, the gay and gallant Sir Walter fought
valiantly, and came back covered with honour and glory. No man could
have had a brighter life, no man could have risen higher. And then came
his downfall. He was accused of plotting against King James, who had
succeeded Queen Elizabeth. He was condemned to death and sent to the
Tower. There seems to be no reason to believe that Raleigh was guilty,
but, guilty or innocent, he spent fourteen years in the Tower. He was
not the kind of man to sit idle, so he set to work and wrote a book on
the history of the world, which kept him occupied, and showed that he
was clever as well as gay and daring. Then once more he was let out for
a short time while he sailed to the West to discover a gold-mine of
which someone had told him. King James, who always wanted money, had let
him go on giving his promise he would come back. Raleigh did not find
the gold-mine, but he was a man of his word. He came back, though he
knew the terrible prison and perhaps the block and axe were waiting for
him. He was beheaded in Whitehall, where King James's own son was so
soon after to be beheaded too. Raleigh's long imprisonment must have
been dreadful to a man full of life and energy. Yet he had
compensations: he was allowed to walk in the garden, and his history
must always have been a solace to him.
There were many others imprisoned in the Bloody Tower; but we must pass
on.
In walking from one part of the Tower to another we meet some men
dressed very curiously in red dresses with velvet caps. These are the
Beef-eaters, who guard the Tower, also called the Yeomen of the Guard.
Their odd name and odd dress always attract people, and they are such
fine men that children sometimes wonder if they are called Beef-eaters
because they eat a lot of beef! That is not so. The name is said to come
from an old French word _buffetier_, which means a man who waited at a
buffet or sideboard; and in old times the beef-eaters waited on the King
and Queen, and they still wear the same costume they wore three hundred
years ago. Every night before midnight the chief Beef-eater goes to find
the chief warder; the Beef-eater carries the keys of the Tower, and with
a guard of men the two go together to lock up the outer gate. When the
sentinel who keeps watch hears them, he calls out, 'Who goes there?' and
the answer is, 'The Keys!' Then says the sentinel, 'Advance, King
George's Keys!' This is a curious old custom. Close by the Bloody Tower
is the Jewel House, where the crowns of the King and Queen and other
royalties are kept. They are made of gold and set with precious stones,
so big that it is difficult to believe that they are real--great rubies
and pearls as large as pigeon's eggs, and huge glittering diamonds. In
this room there is a man always on watch, day and night. Yet the jewels
were once stolen by a daring man called Colonel Blood, who managed to
get away from the Tower, but was caught soon after with the King's crown
under his cloak. This was in the reign of Charles II.
In the White Tower are rooms full of armour worn by English
soldiers--armour of all the different ages, from the time when a man
wore so much iron that if he fell down he could not get up again, and
sometimes was actually smothered before he could get out of it, up to
the present day.
In the White Tower there is one very awful dungeon, a little narrow
cell, without a ray of light, no window at all--nothing but dense
blackness. There must have been many prisoners kept here, for on the
walls there are sad cuttings, now half worn away, which tell how the
poor men occupied their time in chipping their names in the stone. Many
of the martyrs of Queen Mary's reign must have felt this terrible
blackness, for there are texts of which the dates show that they were
cut at that time. One of these is, 'Be faithful unto death, and I will
give thee a crown of life.' The hand that traced out these letters long
years ago is still. The martyr has long since passed from the darkness
of the narrow cell to the great brightness of eternal light.
The torture instruments are shown in the White Tower too, and many of
these brave martyrs felt the torture before they reached the light. The
rack was very commonly used. On it men--yes, and women too--were
sometimes stretched as on a bed; their wrists were tied with cords above
their heads, and their ankles with cords to the other end of the rack.
Then a man turned a handle, and the hands and feet were slowly drawn in
opposite directions. The poor wretch might shriek and scream, or he
might turn as white as death and let never a sound escape him; but it
was all the same: the rack moved on. There was a doctor there to feel
the victim's heart and say when he could bear no more without dying. And
then, when that happened, perhaps he fainted with the agony and was
released, and carried away to be allowed to recover a little, only to be
brought back another day. Sometimes he would bear it bravely enough the
first time, but at the second time his courage would give way, and he
would cry out and say he would do whatever it was his persecutors
wanted, perhaps change his religion, perhaps reveal the names of his
companions in a plot. There were other tortures, too--a kind of iron
cage, called the Scavenger's Daughter, with a collar of iron to fasten
round a man's neck and irons round his arms and legs, which cramped him
up in an awful position, in which he was left for hours, until every
bone ached as if it were red-hot. The thumbscrew was a little thing, but
caused great agony. It was fixed on to anyone's thumb, and then made
tighter and tighter, until sometimes the wretched victim fainted away.
Another way that people were tortured was by being hung up by their
thumbs, so that the whole weight of their bodies rested on the cords. In
this position they were left for hours together.
There is a very beautiful chapel in the White Tower which we must
certainly see. Outside in the garden, opposite to another chapel, called
St. Peter ad Vincula, is the execution ground, where so many people were
beheaded. But I think this is enough for one chapter, and we will learn
something more about the Tower in the next.