THE STUARTS
_James I, arrival at the Tower—Lady Arabella Stuart—George
Brooke—Sir Walter Raleigh—His Liberation—Fresh
Imprisonment—Execution—The Gunpowder Plot—Sir
Thomas Overbury—Carr, Earl of Somerset—Ascendency of
Buckingham—Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex—Charles I—His
Avoidance of the Tower—Sir John Eliot—Felton, Assassin
of Buckingham—Lord Loudoun—Earl of Strafford—Archbishop
Laud—Tower passes into power of Parliament when the Civil War
begins—Imprisonments under the Commonwealth—Lord Capel—The
Restoration—Execution of the Regicides—Villiers, Second Duke
of Buckingham—Colonel Blood’s Attempt to Steal the Crown—The
Mystery of his Pardon—Titus Oates—Lord Stafford—The Rye
House Plot—Accession of James II—The Duke of Monmouth—The
Seven Bishops—Bevis Skelton—Judge Jeffrey—William and
Mary, only one Execution in the Tower all the Reign—But many
Prisoners._
When King James arrived from Scotland he took up his residence and
held his first Court in the Tower, but the plague was in London and
there was no procession to Westminster at his Coronation, though the
Londoners had made preparations for it. At the close of the year (1603)
a conspiracy to place the crown on the head of Lady Arabella Stuart
caused the imprisonment of many eminent men, among them Henry Brooke,
Lord Cobham, his brother George Brooke, Thomas, Lord Grey of Wilton,
and Sir Walter Raleigh. Lady Arabella was the daughter of Charles
Stuart, Earl of Lennox, Darnley’s brother, and was therefore King
James’s first cousin; she was also, as we have already had occasion
to note, related to the Tudors, and this double relationship was the
great misfortune of her life. At the trial of Lord Cobham it was
clearly proved that she had no share in the scheme to make her queen.
She had had many suitors, Henry IV of France and the Archduke Mathias
of Austria among them, but had fallen in love with William Seymour,
grandson of the Earl of Hertford, and for this Queen Elizabeth had kept
her in close confinement. In 1609 King James heard that she was about
to marry some foreign prince; his jealousy was aroused, and he sent her
to the Tower, but finding that his fears were groundless, he gave his
consent to her marrying one of his subjects. She took him at his word,
and married Seymour. In wrath the king sent her to Lambeth Palace as
prisoner, and her husband to the Tower. From Lambeth she was ordered
to Durham, to be under the Bishop, but at Highgate pleaded illness and
remained there, and planned an escape for herself and husband. She
obtained a male disguise and got to Blackwall, where her husband was to
meet her, he having got out of the Tower by dressing like a labourer
and following a cart of firewood. When he reached the appointed
meeting-place he found that Arabella had sailed away in a French boat.
He could not follow her, as the wind was against him, and he had to go
to Ostend. Meanwhile an alarm was raised, Arabella was pursued, caught
in mid-strait, and brought back to the Tower, which she never left
again until her death, September 25, 1615. She had been for some years
insane. She is buried beside Mary Queen of Scots in Westminster Abbey.
Her husband survived her for nearly fifty years, and married a second
wife, a sister of the famous Parliamentary general, the Earl of Essex,
son of Queen Elizabeth’s Essex. In 1660 he became Duke of Somerset, and
lived just long enough to welcome Charles II.
But in following Arabella’s fortunes I have greatly anticipated. We
must go back to the conspiracy. George Brooke and two priests were the
first to be tried and executed. His brother, Lord Cobham, and Lord Grey
de Wilton were also condemned and actually brought out to be executed,
but a respite had been previously signed, and it was produced at the
block in a _coup de théâtre_. They were sent back to their prison, and
for fifteen years longer Cobham lay in confinement. Then, his health
failing, he was allowed to visit Bath in the custody of gaolers, after
which he returned to his prison. Whether he died in the Tower or was
allowed, as some accounts imply, to retire to an obscure house in
the Minories, is uncertain. He died in January, 1619. There was much
underhand dealing about his estates and those of his brother, by which
Cecil gained possession of the greater part of them; and this entered
into the soul of William Brooke, George’s son, who became one of the
most determined foes of Charles I, and died fighting against him at
Newbury. Lord Grey of Wilton, a brilliant young man who might have
served his country well, languished in the Brick Tower till his death
in 1617.
Again disregarding contemporary events for awhile, we take up the
history of Sir Walter Raleigh. He was detained for twelve years, mostly
in the Bloody Tower, in rooms not uncomfortably furnished, was allowed
two servants, and his wife and son could visit him. He had also the
liberty of the garden which lay between his prison and the lieutenant’s
house, and in it he constructed a little room for chemical experiments.
And during this time he wrote his _History of the World_. In conception
it was a colossal book, but he only completed his plan as far as the
end of the second Macedonian war. It is a torso, one of the most
wonderful books in literature, a great folio, very scarce; in fact,
hardly ever to be seen except in old libraries, but full of learning,
wit, shrewdness, when you get the opportunity of perusing it. In the
early days of his captivity Sir George Harvey was lieutenant of the
Tower. They were personal friends, and Raleigh often spent the evening
with him. But when Harvey was succeeded by Sir William Wade things
were changed. The new lieutenant had a personal dislike to Raleigh,
and seems to have taken much trouble to curtail his privileges and
make his life irksome. Henry, Prince of Wales, was partial to him, and
frequently visited him, and the queen is said to have entreated the
king to set him free. But James personally disliked him; partly, it is
said, because he had heard that Raleigh made jests on his ugly face and
uncouth gestures and accent. But, further, he was hated by Spain for
his labours to make the English fleet the most powerful on the seas,
to extend the English colonial possessions, and destroy the Spanish
supremacy; and the Spanish ambassador, Gondomar, was the most powerful
minister at the English court. Prince Henry died in 1612, a heavy loss
to Raleigh, but he got his liberty in 1616 by bribing Villiers, who
went to the king and roused his cupidity by explaining that if Raleigh
were allowed to make a fresh expedition to the West Indies he might
gather great spoils, the lion’s share of which would go to the king.
And so the warrant for his liberation was signed in March, 1616, at the
time when Shakespeare was dying at Stratford-on-Avon. The wretched king
at the same time not only gave a pledge to Gondomar that if Raleigh
touched any Spanish person or property he would hand him over to the
Spanish Government to be hanged at Seville, but also showed him a
private letter of Raleigh, stating the exact number of his ships and
men, as well as the spot on the banks of the Orinoco where he expected
to find a great silver mine. As the Spaniards claimed the whole of that
territory, the vileness of the treachery becomes apparent. He started
from Plymouth in March, 1617, with fourteen ships and nine hundred men.
Continual disaster is the summary of the expedition. His eldest son
was killed fighting gallantly in Guiana. In August, 1618, he returned
a ruined man, and was again lodged in the Tower. The king was burning
to get rid of him, but what should the pretext be? The Council of
State was in uttermost perplexity. Bacon advised acting on the former
sentence. Raleigh pleaded that the commission sending him to America
was a reversal of that sentence both in law and reason, but the Lord
Chief Justice Montagu gave his judicial opinion that it held good,
and so on October 24 the warrant was signed, and on the 29th he was
beheaded in Old Palace Yard.
Again we have to retrace our steps. In 1604 the penal laws against the
Roman Catholics were re-enacted. On November 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes was
seized in the vaults of the Houses of Parliament and conveyed to the
Tower, as were also Thomas and Robert Winter, Robert Keyes, Thomas
Oates, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, and Sir Everard Digby. They were
placed in the dungeons beneath the White Tower. The room is still shown
in the King’s House in which Guy was brought before the Council of
State. And, moreover, in the subterranean dungeon are the bases of the
rack on which he was tortured He is said to have been kept in “Little
Ease” for fifty days. He was put to death, along with Thomas Winter,
Rookwood and Keyes, in Old Palace Yard on January 31, 1606. Digby,
Rookwood and Keyes suffered the same horrible death in Old Palace Yard.
But there were other persons who were implicated and brought in
prisoners, of whom some account must be given, among them Henry Percy,
the aged Earl of Northumberland, Lords Mordaunt and Stourton, and three
Jesuit priests, Garnet, Oldcorne, and Gerard. Northumberland had to
pay an enormous fine and remained a prisoner here for sixteen years;
Mordaunt and Stourton were also heavily fined and kept in durance.
Fathers Garnet and Oldcorne were put to death in the usual horrible
manner, one in St. Paul’s Churchyard, the other at Worcester. With
Gerard it was different. He was questioned in the King’s House about
Garnet’s knowledge of the plot and refused to answer, whereupon he
was taken into the subterranean chamber and hung up by his wrists, he
being a heavy man. In this position he was pressed with questions for
an hour, and several times fainted. When he still refused to open his
mouth Wade, the lieutenant, cried out in a rage, “Hang there, then,
till you rot.” However, when the tolling from the Bell Tower gave
notice to the Commissioners to quit the fortress for the day, the poor
priest was suffered to crawl to his prison room at the top of the Salt
Tower. Next day the same torture was renewed, and when he fainted he
was restored by having vinegar poured down his throat. It was of no
use, and he was again carried back to his prison, where he lay fifty
days. Another Roman Catholic named Arden was confined in the Cradle
Tower, some hundred feet off; they could see one another, and could
even exchange a few words across the Privy Garden. Gerard persuaded his
gaoler to let Arden visit him, and they planned an escape. They wrote a
letter with orange juice, which is invisible until it is subjected to
a process known to the initiated, and got it sent to co-religionists
outside, who came opposite with a boat, and to them the prisoners threw
a thin cord across the moat by means of a leaden weight attached to it.
The boatmen fastened a stout rope to this, and it was hauled up and
made fast within the chamber, and down it the two men “swarmed,” though
Gerard was in agony from his swollen arms. But they succeeded and got
away safely, Gerard to Rome, where he wrote a full account of his trial
and escape.
We pass on to one of the foulest records in the history of our great
fortress. Thomas Overbury, the son of a judge, was sent by his father
“on a voyage of pleasure” to Edinburgh in 1601, and there made
acquaintance, which ripened into intimate friendship, with one Robert
Carr, page to the Earl of Dunbar. On the accession of King James to the
English throne he showed Carr great favour, and brought him to
London. Carr, conscious of his own defective education and training,
leaned much on Overbury’s ability, who thus to some extent shared his
prosperity and was knighted in 1608. Carr was made Earl of Rochester in
1610. Their intimacy continued so close that men about court cringed
to Overbury with a view to gaining Rochester’s favour, but now came a
bitter feud. Rochester involved himself in a liaison with the Countess
of Essex, a woman of altogether abandoned character, and she obtained
a divorce with a view of marrying Rochester. But against this marriage
Overbury raised an indignant protest, and entreated his friend to
abandon the idea. Rochester resented his interference, and the countess
in wrath excited him to retaliate. Rochester hesitated—probably
Overbury was in possession of secrets which it was not desirable to
bring out—and tried to persuade him to accept a diplomatic appointment
abroad. He steadily refused all offers, and the Earl of Northampton,
the countess’s uncle, who was keen for the match, persuaded the king,
who was already prejudiced against Overbury, to send him to the Tower,
on a charge of having spoken disrespectfully of the queen. Rochester
regarded this imprisonment as a temporary expedient only; but far
other was the idea of the countess. After making one or two proposals
to officers to assassinate Overbury, she procured the dismissal of
Wade from the governorship, and put in a tool of her own, Sir Gervase
Helwys, by whose management the wretched captive was slowly and
skilfully poisoned, September 15, 1613, three months and seventeen days
after his first committal. A few weeks later Rochester was created
Earl of Somerset. Nearly two years later a boy in the employment of
one of the apothecaries revealed the crime. Investigations were made
and proofs were abundantly forthcoming. Helwys and the attendants were
hanged. The Earl of Northampton, it was clearly proved, had been an
accomplice, but he had died. The Earl and Countess of Somerset were
arrested, tried and convicted in May, 1616, but were pardoned and
released from the Tower in 1621. Public opinion was much outraged;
there were demonstrations in the streets, and it was even broadly
intimated that King James must have been privy to the murder. There was
a tradition that Mrs. Turner, one of the principal agents employed in
this crime by Lady Essex, appeared at her trial in a stiffened ruff
which was all the fashion, and which we constantly see in portraits of
that time, and in the same decoration was hanged (March, 1615), the
result being that these ruffs immediately went out of fashion.
There were other occupants of the Tower during the reign of James I,
and the records are miserable enough; intrigues and plots among rival
aspirants to power frequently ended in imprisonment of the defeated.
The rise of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, is undoubtedly a
notable fact of the ignoble reign, but can only be touched upon here
as connected with the imprisonment of Sir John Eliot, Sir Edward
Coke, and Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex. Cranfield, a creation
of Buckingham, was one of the foremost accusers of Bacon for corrupt
practices. He had been made Master of the Wardrobe and Lord High
Treasurer. He was convicted of robbing the magazine of arms, of
pocketing bribes and selling offices, and of making false entries of
the royal debts. He was condemned to pay a fine of £50,000, and to be
imprisoned for life. He was released, however, in a few weeks, lived in
retirement for the rest of his life, and remained neutral during the
Civil War. He died in 1645. Two sons in succession succeeded him, after
which the family became extinct.
The schemes and intrigues concerning the proposed marriage of Charles
with the Infanta of Spain and the tortuous policy of the Duke of
Buckingham have not come within our scope. But it has to be noted that
Sir John Eliot, who had by reason of his great ability been appointed
Vice-Admiral of Devon, had got into trouble during Buckingham’s absence
in Spain, by arresting a notorious pirate named Nutt, who was under the
secret patronage of Calvert, the Secretary of State, and Eliot was sent
to prison on false charges. He was liberated after some months and got
a seat in Parliament in 1624, where he almost immediately displayed
remarkable power of oratory. Buckingham had now broken with Spain, and
in this Eliot heartily went with him, but his feeling was altogether
based upon the rights of the House of Commons and the popular feeling
against any Spanish alliance. He was one of the leaders also of the
impeachment of the Earl of Middlesex. Soon there appeared serious signs
of his divergence from the king’s policy. He was no Puritan, having
a strong antipathy to Calvinism; but he urged enforcement of the
recusancy laws against the Roman Catholics, because religion “made
distractions among men.” As Mr. Gardiner puts it, his creed was “_the
monarchy of man_.... There must be unity and purity of faith, and
that faith must be one which brought man face to face with his Maker”
(vol. v., p. 343). In those same early days he was in conflict with
another man who was to become one of the most prominent politicians of
his day—Thomas Wentworth, presently Lord Strafford. Wentworth too,
according to his light, was a patriot. He was sincerely desirous for
the prosperity of the country, but held that strength is the essence
of good government, had a contempt for constitutional forms, and in
his arrogance, knowing his own good intentions, paid no respect to
those who opposed him. Eliot stood at the opposite pole. Parliament
was to him the voice and the majesty of the nation. He earnestly
and strenuously opposed the entrance of Wentworth into the House of
Commons, on the ground that his election had been a forced one and was
a sham: and he carried his point.
Further alienation followed. Buckingham’s war with Spain was a failure.
Eliot, after some hesitation on account of old friendship, spoke
bitterly against him in King Charles’ first Parliament of 1626; an
impeachment followed, of which Eliot was one of the managers, and for
this the king sent him and Sir Dudley Digges to the Tower. But the
cleavage between king and parliament had grown serious; the Commons
refused to proceed to business until their members were freed, and it
was done, but he was dismissed from offices which he held. The third
parliament met in 1628, and again Eliot spoke against Buckingham and
against arbitrary taxation, and it was mainly by his energy that the
Petition of Right was carried. Next year Buckingham was murdered by
Felton. Eliot next directed his energies against Archbishop Laud, who
had expressed his intention of raising Church ceremonial, and excluding
Puritan teachers from office in the Church, and thus, according to
Eliot, of making war upon the religious convictions of the nation. In
the midst of an angry debate the king prorogued parliament, Eliot was
again sent to the Tower, and parliament was dissolved (March 10, 1629).
When examined as to his conduct he refused to answer, on the ground
that it would be yielding up the privilege of parliament. The Crown
lawyers had much difficulty in meeting this contention, but they
managed to secure his conviction in the Court of King’s Bench, on the
ground that he had calumniated the minister of the Crown, and he was
fined £2,000. A word of acknowledgment from him that he had been in the
wrong would have procured his liberty, but he would not speak it, for
to surrender the privileges of parliament would have been in his eyes
to betray the liberties of the nation. So he lay in prison writing the
treatise which he called _The Monarchy of Man_, which had a profound
effect on public opinion and the change in the balance of forces. He
showed signs of consumption, and petitioned for leave to go into the
country to recruit his health. But it was refused, and he died November
27, 1632. His family petitioned that he might be buried with his
ancestors, but this also was refused, and he was laid in St. Peter’s
chapel.
It was convenient to carry on Eliot’s history unbroken, but it is
necessary to look back to the assassination of Buckingham. The
assassin, Felton, bought his knife at a stall on Tower Hill, went to
Portsmouth, and there committed his crime. His motives still remain
uncertain. Probably religious fanaticism was one, but private vengeance
for supposed injustice as to promotion was another. Buckingham was so
unpopular that when Felton was brought down the river to the Tower,
blessings and prayers were cried after him by the crowd. He expressed
deep penitence, and requested that he might be allowed to wear
sackcloth and a halter until the day of his death, and might receive
the Communion. He was hanged at Tyburn in December, and his body was
hung in chains at Portsmouth.
Lords Spencer and Arundel were shut up in the Tower over a private
quarrel. Arundel insulted Spencer by telling him that at no distant
time back his ancestors had been tending sheep, to which the retort
was, “And at that time yours were plotting treason.”
James I was the last monarch who used the Tower as a royal residence.
Charles I did not even rest there on the night preceding his
coronation, nor is there any record of his having visited the place
during his whole reign.
One line may be given to Mervyn, Lord Audley and Earl of Castlehaven,
who was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1631 for a whole series of revolting
crimes which probably indicate insanity. But the cells continued to
be filled by offenders against the Government, Denzil Holles, Selden,
Valentine, Coryton, Sir Miles Hobart, Sir P. Heyman among them. The
first-named was brother-in-law of Lord Strafford, and strove to save
him, but he took a strong part against the king’s policy, though after
the Civil War broke out he opposed Cromwell and the Independents, and
after the Restoration he was in the confidence of the king. John Selden
was a steady opponent of the king, but after his fall kept entirely
clear of politics, and gave himself to his great and valuable legal
labours. Lord Loudoun was one of the commissioners sent to England by
the Scottish Covenanters, and was committed to the Tower on the charge
of treasonable correspondence. Clarendon has a story that the king
ordered that he should be executed by virtue of his royal warrant,
that the Marquis of Hamilton made his way to the royal presence to
remonstrate, and was met with a curt refusal to listen. “Let the
warrant be obeyed,” said the king, whereupon Hamilton said, “Then I
shall start posthaste for Scotland to-morrow morning, for the whole
city will be in an uproar, and I will show that I had no hand in it.”
Thereupon Charles gave way, and soon after Loudoun was released. But
the truth of this story has been questioned. He afterwards showed a
genuine desire to reconcile the king with the Presbyterians, and was
present at the coronation of Charles II at Scone in 1650.
But we come now to the two most prominent prisoners of King Charles’s
time. On November 11, 1640, the Earl of Strafford was at Whitehall
making proposals for the impeachment of the parliamentary leaders
for treason. At the same moment Pym was impeaching Strafford in the
House of Commons. The earl heard of this, and hastened to the House to
defend himself, but was not allowed to speak, and was carried off to
the Tower. So was Archbishop Laud. In January Strafford was brought to
trial in Westminster Hall, and defended himself with superb eloquence.
“Never any man,” says the Puritan chronicler Whitelock, “acted his
part on such a theatre with greater reason, constancy, judgment and
temper, and with better grace in all his words and gestures.” But he
was condemned to die. The king was eager to save him, and there
was at one moment a possibility of it. Charles had made overtures
for a ministry composed of the popular leaders, in which Pym was
to be Chancellor of the Exchequer and Holles Secretary of State.
But meanwhile he was planning to bring up the army from the North,
discontented as it was by want of pay, to seize the Tower and free
Strafford. He also reckoned on support from the Scotch, who were
divided into opposing parties. But Pym became aware of his double
dealing, a peremptory message was sent to him by the House of Commons
for the death warrant, and Charles signed it. We have all heard how
the earl wrote to the king beseeching him not to endanger his crown by
opposing the will of the people, and how when he heard of the king’s
assent he exclaimed, “Put not your trust in princes.” He was led out
to Tower Hill to die on May 12, 1641. On his way he passed the Bloody
Tower, in which Laud was imprisoned, and knelt to receive the blessing,
which the prelate uttered with uplifted hands.
That was the turning-point in the history, the victory of Parliament
over the minister whose theory of government was personal authority.
And the same conflict of principles was seen in the case of the
Archbishop. He was not brought to trial indeed for some years, for the
House of Commons had pressing work on hand and the case was much more
complicated. For there were those among the Puritans who loved the
Prayer Book with all their hearts, whilst they rejected Laud’s theory
of Church government. The prelate had been educated by Buckeridge,
president of St. John’s College, Oxford, who had always set his face
against Puritanism in the latter days of Elizabeth’s reign, and had
laid much stress on sacramental grace and episcopal organization;
and Laud had entirely accepted this teaching, and all his life was
earnestly attached to the observance of external order. And herein
he was supported by an increasing number of theologians hostile to
Calvinism. In his early controversial writings he followed the teaching
of Hooker, desiring to bring questions not of necessity vital, under
duly authorized authority. He became president of his college in 1611,
Archdeacon of Huntingdon 1615, Dean of Gloucester 1616, Bishop of St.
David’s 1621. But these successive advancements were not so important
in his life as the ascendency which he acquired at the accession of
Charles I. He had consistently held to his opinions, and now he saw
his way, as he thought, to enforce authority as the rule in religion,
with uniformity as its natural consequence. In 1626 he was made Bishop
of Bath and Wells, in 1628 of London, Chancellor of the University of
Oxford in 1629, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. It is needless to
say that his determination to enforce uniformity was identified by
the Presbyterians as of a piece with Strafford’s “thorough.” Of his
zeal, his honesty and purity of purpose there is no question, any more
than of his holiness of life. But he was blind to the necessity of
paying due respect to the convictions of others, and his meaning was
misjudged. Thus, when he insisted on placing the Lord’s Table at the
east end of every church instead of in the middle, he was accused,
quite untruly, of desiring to restore the Roman Catholic faith. He
was angry at the charge, and himself incurred the anger of the queen,
Henrietta Maria, for repudiating Roman doctrine.
Meanwhile the Civil War broke out (August, 1642), and in London for the
time being Puritanism had the upper hand; the Bishops were excluded
from Parliament, the Archbishop lay in close confinement in the Bloody
Tower. His diary remains to tell us of the hardships he went through.
On March 10, 1643, he was brought to trial and charged in general
terms with “high treason and other misdemeanours.” The total want
of particularity in the articles of accusation, however, prove the
irregular nature of the proceedings. Sergeant Wild on the part of the
prosecution admitted this, but said that when all the Archbishop’s
evil deeds were put together they made many grand treasons. “I crave
your mercy,” retorted Laud’s counsel; “I never understood before, Mr.
Sergeant, that two hundred couple of black rabbits made a black horse.”
The trial lasted for twenty days, with many intervals, but at length he
was condemned on the charge that he had “attempted to subvert religion
and the fundamental laws of the realm.” He was beheaded on Tower Hill
on January 10, 1645, in the seventy-second year of his age, and was
buried in the chancel of Allhallows Barking, but the body was removed
to St. John’s, Oxford, in 1663.
From the time when Charles unfurled his standard at Nottingham, the
Tower, though nominally held in his name, was in the keeping of
Parliament, and its prisoners were the king’s supporters. Thus Sir Ralph
Hopton, who had voted for Strafford’s attainder and opposed King
Charles’s taxation schemes, was sent here “for ten days” by the
Parliament because he protested against violent speeches by his fellow
members against the king. He afterwards joined the king’s army, and
was created Baron Hopton. On the overthrow he retired to Bruges, where
he died. He was a sincere patriot, and received earnest assurances
from the Puritan leaders of their personal respect for him. Sir John
Gayer, Lord Mayor of London, was shut up for publishing the king’s
proclamation against the militia; so were three aldermen and a sheriff,
Sir John Glynne, Recorder of London, a first-rate lawyer and splendid
orator, a supporter of the Solemn League and Covenant, but imprisoned
for opposing the ascendency of the army and the intolerance of the
Independents; released and re-admitted to parliament, and one of the
commissioners appointed to treat with the king at Carisbrooke; but
still distrusted; made a speech in favour of monarchy in 1658, made
king’s sergeant to Charles II. Two great names are those of John
Paulet, fifth Marquis of Winchester (“Old Loyalty”), the celebrated
defender of Basing House, and Monk, the future Duke of Albemarle,
taken prisoner by Fairfax at the siege of Nantwich, and released from
imprisonment on condition that he would fight for them in Ireland, but
not in England. Two of his fellow-prisoners who had been fighting by
his side, Lord Macquire and Colonel MacMahon, were captured in trying
to escape by swimming the moat, and were hanged.
[Illustration: 25. THE EXECUTION OF THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.
_From a contemporary engraving by Hollar._]
[Illustration: 26. THE SEVEN BISHOPS TAKEN TO THE TOWER.
_From a Dutch etching of the time. Gardner Collection._]
[Illustration: 27. _THE SOUTH VIEW OF THE TOWER OF LONDON._]
[Illustration: 28. THE TOWER AND OLD LONDON BRIDGE.
_From an engraving after J. Maurer_, 1746.
_Gardner Collection._]
At the time of the tragedy at Whitehall, January 30, 164-8/9, many of
the king’s supporters were prisoners in the Tower, and some of the
most illustrious of them shared his fate—the Duke of Hamilton, the
Earl of Holland, Arthur Lord Capel. A brave old Welsh knight, Sir John
Owen, who was also sentenced, made a low bow to the judges, and said
they had “done honour to a poor gentleman of Wales to sentence him
with such noble fellow-prisoners.” Ireton was so moved with this that
he made a speech to the Commons pleading that whereas the rest had
advocates to speak for them, plain Sir John Owen had none, and moved
that he be pardoned. It was carried, and Sir John went back to Wales
and died in peace in 1666. Another Lord Mayor, Sir Abraham Reynardson,
was imprisoned and fined because he would not publish the parliamentary
ordinance abolishing royalty. After the Restoration he was again Lord
Mayor. There is a fine portrait of him in Merchant Taylors Hall.
Christopher Love is another prisoner who claims mention. He was a
Puritan minister, very eloquent, and attracted large congregations.
In his horror at the execution of the king he turned royalist, and
was beheaded for plotting for the Restoration. After the battle of
Worcester in 1651 a great number of prisoners were brought hither—the
Marquis of Worcester, Earls of Crawford, Lauderdale, and Rother; they
remained until the Restoration. In July, 1656, a mandate was sent by
Cromwell to the Lieutenant of the Tower for the release of Lucy Barlow
and her child. She was otherwise named Lucy Walters, and was one of
Charles II’s concubines. The child was afterwards Duke of Monmouth. She
had been imprisoned for some time. Miles Syndercombe, who had been in
Cromwell’s army, and in very intimate friendship with him, took affront
at some slight and tried to assassinate him in 1657. He was sentenced
to death, but committed suicide, and the body was dragged at a horse’s
tail from the Tower to Tyburn, and there buried with a stake driven
through it. Dr. John Hewitt was minister of the Church of St. Gregory
by St. Paul’s, and Cromwell’s daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, was a
regular member of his congregation. It is recorded that the Protector
himself frequently joined her. This did not prevent Hewitt from raising
forces in Kent and Sussex for the Restoration, and he was beheaded on
Tower Hill, though Mrs. Claypole earnestly interceded for him. With him
died Sir Henry Slingsby. There were very many others, and even after
Cromwell’s death plotters were brought in, among them Henry Mordaunt,
brother of the Earl of Peterborough, Lady Mary Howard, the Earl of
Chesterfield, Lords Falconbridge, Falkland, De la Ware, Bellasis,
Charles Howard and Castleton. They were subsequently released. When
Cromwell died, and the nation was yet in uncertainty as to the course
of events, the Tower became the object of much attention. There was
the army on one side and the Parliamentary party on the other, and the
latter arranged with Colonel Fitz, the Lieutenant, that Colonel Okey,
with three hundred men, should appear at a given hour and demand and
receive admittance. But this was divulged and the army sent Colonel
Desborough with a force, which seized the lieutenant, and placed a
fresh garrison. This fell to quarrelling, whereupon Lenthall, the
speaker, sent another force, which took possession under Sir Anthony
Ashley Cooper. Then came General Monk’s grand _coup_, and he seized the
fortress in the name of King Charles.
The Restoration, as was probably inevitable, brought fierce reprisals
on those who had been severe and unrelenting. Thomas Harrison had
been one of the most eager of the regicides; he had afterwards been
strenuous in support of Cromwell for a while, but, as an anabaptist,
had become a Fifth Monarchy man, and had been twice sent to the
Tower as such. Being released in 1659, he retired to his house in
Staffordshire, and in May 1660 was arrested there, was brought to trial
in October, drawn on a hurdle to Charing Cross, and there executed
(October 13). So were Gregory Clement, a London merchant, Colonel John
Jones, Thomas Scot, who had all taken part in the king’s trial. So were
Colonels Axtel and Hacker, who had commanded the guard at the trial and
at the execution. Sir Harry Vane, who had taken no part in the trial,
was charged with having endeavoured to prevent the Restoration, and
suffered on that charge. Some escaped, probably with the connivance of
the guards. Three who had so escaped, and had reached Holland—Colonels
Barkstead and Okey and Miles Corbet—were treacherously brought back
and put to death at Tyburn in 1662. Some of the delinquents, e.g. Lord
Monson, Sir H. Mildmay, Robert Wallop, were sentenced to be drawn on
sledges from the Tower to Tyburn and back with halters round their
necks, and then to suffer perpetual imprisonment. In contrast there
were grand doings, and certainly not without national enthusiasm, in
the coronation procession from the Tower to Westminster.
In the great fire of 1666 the Tower was largely indebted for its escape
to the energy of the king, who had the buildings contiguous to the
moat and the entrance blown up with gunpowder. Pepys was an eyewitness
of this measure, and declares that as the White Tower was the powder
magazine, “it would undoubtedly not only have beaten down and destroyed
all the bridge, but sunk and torn the vessels in the river, and
rendered the demolition beyond expression for several miles about the
country.”
There were many committals in the early years of Charles II’s reign,
on charges of “seditious practices” and dangerous designs, but few
of any abiding interest. Thomas, Lord Buller, of Moor Park, was sent
for challenging the Duke of Buckingham, and the Marquis of Dorchester
for “using ill language” about the same noble, and in 1667 the duke
himself was shut up here, and not for the first nor second time. There
is no need here to discuss the character of George Villiers, second
Duke of Buckingham. Dryden’s character of him as “Zimri” appears to
be as true as it is masterly. He was an infant when his father was
assassinated, and was brought up with the children of Charles I, and
served them after the king’s death, fighting for the younger Charles
at Worcester. But in Holland he quarrelled with the queen-mother and
Clarendon, returned to England and married Fairfax’s daughter, for
which he was sent to the Tower in 1658. Released at the Restoration, he
was again admitted to royal favour and was an influential member of the
Cabal ministry, but in 1668 seduced the Countess of Shrewsbury, killed
her husband in a duel, was consequently treated with coldness by the
Duke of York, and joined the Whigs; was again sent to the Tower for
intriguing, but apparently his ribald conversation got him into favour
again with Charles II, and he was restored to Court favour. From that
time he kept out of politics and wrote verses. His clever play, the
_Rehearsal_, holds its place in English literature.
We turn aside a while to record a most daring and sensational crime,
namely Colonel Blood’s attempt to carry off the regalia from the Tower.
He was a brutal ruffian, said to have been Irish born, half sailor,
half highwayman, who had served under Cromwell, and for that reason
styled himself Colonel. After the Restoration he became a spy of the
Government, and if he could have had his way would have sent some
innocent persons to death.
In 1671 Sir Gilbert Talbot held the post of “Master of the Jewel
House.” His pay had been lowered, and by way of compensation he was
allowed to admit visitors to his treasures and to charge. One day
in April, 1671, came an intensely clerical-looking personage to the
Martin Tower, with a long cloak, cassock and girdle, accompanied by a
woman whom he represented as his wife, who was very anxious to see the
regalia. The glorious dazzle made her faint, and the old curator, Talbot
Edwards by name, whom Sir Gilbert had placed in charge, called his
wife to attend to the sick lady. The restoratives administered were so
efficacious that the couple went off overflowing with gratitude and
promising to return. And soon the “cleric” came again, bringing a pair
of gloves to Mrs. Edwards in return for her kindness to Mrs. Blood.
During this visit he announced that he had a nephew just come back
from abroad after some prosperous ventures, and that he had set his
heart on this nephew marrying Edwards’s daughter, and the negotiations
so far advanced that he was invited to bring the nephew to dinner.
At dinner he said a long grace with much emotion, and afterwards
announced that he should bring two friends next day, who were leaving
London, and very anxious to see the crown first. And next day (May 9)
they came, all with concealed daggers and pocket pistols, and rapiers
hidden in their canes, and directly they were shown into the room
Edwards was effectually gagged, enveloped in a thick cloak, and told
that if he attempted to give an alarm they would kill him. He could
not cry out, but he struggled manfully, and they beat him on the head
with a wooden mallet, stabbed him, and left him for dead. Then they
turned their attention to their quarry. Blood hid the crown under his
cloak, one companion put the orb in his breeches pocket, and another
began to file the sceptre in two pieces, as it was too long to carry
away without being seen. At this moment advancing steps were heard;
Edwards’s son had unexpectedly come back from Flanders, and he heard
his father endeavouring to give the alarm. The thieves ran downstairs;
young Edwards, accompanied by his brother-in-law, Captain Beckman,
who had arrived with him, hurried in pursuit. They had crossed the
drawbridge leading to the wharf, Blood firing two pistols as he ran.
There were horses waiting for them, but Beckman rushed at him, a fierce
struggle followed, in which Blood was worsted and captured, as were
his companions. When he dropped the crown some of the gems fell out
but were recovered, as was a ruby which was found, having belonged to
the sceptre. In fact the treasures were uninjured, but poor Edwards,
who was eighty years old, died in a few days. Blood cynically remarked
when he was brought a prisoner to the White Tower that “it was a brave
attempt, for it was for a crown.”
It is an absolute mystery why Charles II sent for him forthwith, and
not only pardoned him, but conferred a pension of £500 a year on
him and certain Irish estates. Evelyn, in his diary, expresses his
amazement. Some think that Charles, wanting money, had commissioned
Blood to steal the treasures and pawn or sell them in Holland, and
divide the spoil with him; others suppose that Blood knew some awkward
secrets about the king and threatened to reveal them. He often appeared
at Court, and returned kindness which the Duke of Buckingham had shown
him by a peculiarly atrocious attempt to blackmail him, for which he
was fined £10,000. He died in Bowling Street, Westminster, August 24,
1680. His likeness in the National Portrait Gallery quite confirms
Evelyn’s description of him, “a villainous unmerciful face, a false
countenance.”
Yet even his rascality grows dim beside that of Titus Oates, whose
horrible concoction of lies concerning a pretended Popish plot sent
nearly forty men to the scaffold. The execution of William Lord
Stafford on Tower Hill, December 29, 1680, on the charge sworn to by
Oates that he planned to kill the king and place the Duke of York on
the throne, was the turning-point in the agitation. When it began
Oates was half deified by the excited populace as the deliverer of
the country; but as time went on men shook their heads, doubtfully
at first, then strongly. Lord Stafford on the scaffold declared his
absolute innocence, and the spectators cried out with tears, “We
believe your lordship.” Oates had made too rich a harvest to give up
his devilish business, but after this he found no more believers.
But that there was good reason to expect an endeavour to restore the
Roman faith no one doubted. As far back as 1670 the Duke of York had
given his adhesion to it, and therefore the “country party,” as it
was called, were eager to prevent his accession to the throne. The
struggles over the Exclusion Bill need not detain us here; but the
failure of that Bill, owing to the “trimming” of some of its chief
supporters who loved the favour of royalty, led to a secret project of
the earnest Whigs to avert what they held to be a calamity. The leader
of this party had been Anthony Ashley, first Earl of Shaftesbury.
“Of these the false Ahithophel was first,” wrote Dryden in his great
satire. He was joined by Lord William Russell, the Duke of Monmouth,
Algernon Sidney, the Earl of Essex, son of Lord Capel, who was beheaded
in the early days of the Commonwealth, John Hampden, grandson of the
great Parliamentary leader, and Lord Howard. Shaftesbury had been sent
to the Tower in 1677 for agitating against the king’s high-handed
proceedings against the Corporation of London, but had been released
on submission. He now protested against the king holding a Parliament
at Oxford and was again lodged in the Tower, but the Whig grand
jury threw out the charge. But he soon found that his friends would
not take such energetic measures as he called for, so he retired to
Holland, where he soon died. His companions formed new projects of
insurrection, but could not agree; Sidney and Lord Essex were for a
Commonwealth, Monmouth hoped for the crown for himself. Russell and
Hampden were attached to the old constitution, and sought for “redress
of grievances.” And whilst they were discussing, the “Rye House Plot”
was formed by some inferior conspirators of the same way of thinking.
The Rye House lay on the road to Newmarket. The owner, Rumbold, was an
old Republican, and a plan was formed to kill the king on his way to
Newmarket races. It was made known to the Government, and though it
was shown that some of the greater men had held meetings at the Rye
House in support of their general views, it was also clear that neither
Russell, Essex nor Sidney were parties to the assassination scheme. The
trial of Lord Russell, and the devotion of his wife furnish a pathetic
chapter in history. He was beheaded in Lincoln’s Inn Fields July 21,
1683. On the same day Lord Essex was found in the Tower with his throat
cut. Some held that he had been murdered by the king and the Duke of
York, but the coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of suicide, and
Gardiner and Green both consider this as the most probable view. Sidney
followed. He was in principle a republican, though he had refused to
accept a seat among the judges of Charles I. He was now condemned on
the sole evidence of his companion, Lord Howard, who had turned king’s
evidence to save his own life, and on that of some letters of his in
which he upheld the lawfulness of resisting tyrants. Jeffreys, who was
now Chief Justice, tried him, and persuaded the jury to convict. He was
beheaded on December 7.
Charles II and his brother James are said not to have visited the Tower
for fifteen years before they came thither at the time of Essex’s death.
When Charles died, February 6, 168-4/5, the Tower may be said to have
ceased to be a royal residence. At the coronation of James II, the
usual procession from thence to Westminster was omitted, and has never
since been revived. But it continued to be a state prison. There is no
need to tell how the unhappy son of Charles II and Lucy Walters, James,
Duke of Monmouth, took up arms to obtain the crown, and how he was
defeated at the battle of Sedgemoor, the last battle fought on English
ground, July 6, 1685. He was captured and brought to London on the
13th, and being allowed an interview with the king, with abject cries
supplicated in vain for his life. He was sent to the Tower, and two
days later, a bill of attainder having been previously passed against
him, he was beheaded on Tower Hill. The Bishops of Ely and Bath and
Wells (Turner and Ken) accompanied him to the scaffold, where his head
was hacked off after five blows.
But a memorable time was reached in the history of the Church and
Nation when “the Seven Bishops” were brought hither as prisoners. The
king announced his intention of repealing by his own personal act
the Penal Laws against Roman Catholics and Dissenters. The leading
Dissenters in reply—Baxter, Howe, Bunyan—rejected such “indulgence,”
which they said should be by Act of Parliament, not by an absolute
overruling of the law. They saw, of course, clearly what his aim was.
He was, as usual, obstinate, published the “Declaration of Indulgence,”
which all the clergy were commanded to read in church. Four only did
it in London, and when they began the congregations walked out, and
a similar spirit was shown in the country. The Archbishop, Sancroft,
summoned his brother bishops to Lambeth, and the six who were able to
obey him, namely Lloyd of St. Asaph, Ken of Bath and Wells, Turner
of Ely, Lake of Chichester, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney of
Bristol, joined in a temperate protest, in which they told the King
that the declaration was illegal, and asked him to withdraw it. In
anger he sent them all to the Tower for “uttering a seditious libel.”
They were carried to Traitors’ Gate, the banks of the river thronged
with cheering spectators; the very sentinels knelt for their blessing
and the soldiers drank their healths. The narrative of their trial in
Westminster Hall is perhaps the most splendid chapter in Macaulay’s
_History._ On June 29 they were acquitted, although the jury had been
packed and the judges were tools of the Crown, and the roof of
Westminster Hall cracked at the tremendous applause which followed the
verdict.
A curious episode occurred in the last days of James’s reign. Bevis
Skelton was English minister in the Netherlands, and warned James of
the designs of the Duke of Orange, whereupon the latter pressed for
his recall. James sent him then to Versailles, and he moved Louis XIV
to oppose William’s schemes. But King James resented his interference,
recalled him, and sent him to the Tower; and then finding that the
danger from Orange was imminent, made Skelton governor of the fortress
in which he had been a prisoner. When James fled, the keys of the Tower
were taken from Skelton and confided to Lord Lucas, who held them for
the Prince of Orange. Skelton followed the king across seas and died in
his service.
Lucas had not long held his office before he was entrusted with the
custody of Judge Jeffreys. That this extraordinary man was violent of
temper no one questions; he was also a man of strong convictions; he
never in his subservience to his royal master showed any yielding to
that master’s faith; he had great natural ability; and as we read of
his unrelenting cruelty in his progress through Dorset and Somerset
to try the rebels after the Sedgemoor campaign, it is also impossible
not to see how skilfully he produced evidence against his prisoners.
In that “Bloody Assize” 350 rebels were hanged, more than 800 were
sold into slavery beyond sea, and a yet larger number were whipped and
imprisoned. Even loyal subjects were appalled at the cruelty, and he
was regarded with horror and disgust. James made him Lord Chancellor,
and when James fled, Jeffreys knew that his own fall was imminent. He
heard the mob shouting his name and disguised himself as a collier, and
hid himself in a little house at Wapping until such time as he could
escape beyond sea. He was recognized, whilst looking out of window, by
a clerk that he had bullied from the bench, was seized and conveyed
first to the Mansion House, then to the Tower. And here he died, on
April 19, 1689. He was only forty-one years old. He is buried in the
chancel of St. Mary, Aldermanbury.
During the twelve years’ joint reign of William and Mary there was
only one political execution, namely that of Sir John Fenwick, who was
beheaded on Tower Hill, January 28, 1697, for conspiring to assassinate
King William. He was a man of irregular life, and there is no doubt
of his guilt. But the Tower was constantly receiving fresh captives,
partisans of the House of Stuart. Thus in 1690 “Francis Cholmondeley,
Esquire, a member of the House of Commons, was committed for refusing
to take the oaths of allegiance; and Matthew Crosse, otherwise Long,
Colonel John Butler, Major George Matthews, Lieutenant-Colonel Knyvet
Hastings and the Earl of Yarmouth, in the same year, ‘for abetting
and adhering to their Majesties’ enemies.’ To these may be added
Charles Halton, Esquire, for publishing a treasonable libel; Bernard
Howard, Esquire; Lord Ross; Arthur, Earl of Torrington; Sir John Gage
and Sir Walter Vavasour, for various political offences amounting
to high treason. Mr. Stafford, the Earls of Newburgh, Clancarty
and Tyrone; with Thomas, Lord Morley and Monteagle; Henry, Earl of
Clarendon; George, Lord Dartmouth; Major-General Maxwell; Lord Cahire;
Major-General Dorrington and Mr. Maxwell were also prisoners, but the
specific charges under which they were committed are unascertained”
(Britton).
In 1692, John, Earl of Marlborough, was imprisoned on a charge “of
abetting and adhering to their Majesties’ enemies,” as were also Lord
Brudenell, the Earl of Huntingdon, Sir Robert Thorold and Colonel
Langston. They were, after two months’ confinement, released on bail
to reappear if called upon. Charles, Lord Mohun, was also a prisoner
in the same year, for having killed William Mountford, the celebrated
comedian, in a quarrel on account of Mrs. Bracegirdle, an eminent
actress. Readers of Esmond will remember the story. “In February,
1692, Lord Viscount Falkland and Henry Guy, Esquire, suffered a
short confinement in the Tower for having, as Members of Parliament,
received bribes; and, at various intervals during the year, Colonel
John Parker; Bartholomew Walmesley, Esquire; Sir Thomas Stanley; Caryl,
Lord Viscount Mollineux; Sir Rowland Stanley; Sir Thomas Clifton; Sir
William Gerard; Peter Leigh and William Dicconson, Esquires, were
immured in the same prison on charges of adhering to the enemies of the
Government, and levying war against their Majesties.”
“In 1696, Charles, Earl of Monmouth, ‘for having spoken disrespectfully
of the king,’ and Henry Buckley, Esquire; Thomas, Earl of Ailesbury;
Sir Philip Constable; Arthur, Lord Forbes; and Sir John Fenwick were
imprisoned here on various charges of sedition and treason. Thomas,
Lord Kerry, and Brigadier Richard Ingoldsby were committed, in the
following year, for having challenged the Lord Chancellor of Ireland;
as were, likewise, John Knight and Charles Duncombe, Esquires, members
of the House of Commons, the former for having falsely endorsed
exchequer bills, and the latter for aiding and assisting in his illegal
practices. Two years afterwards, Sir Richard Levin was lodged in this
fortress for aspersing the characters of four of the commissioners
of Irish forfeitures; as were also Charles, Lord Mohun, and Edward,
Earl of Warwick and Holland, on a charge of murdering Richard Coote,
Esquire; but those noblemen were unanimously acquitted by their peers.”
The largeness of the number of prisoners is shown by a paper in the
handwriting of Sir C. Wren in 1695. He was directed to examine the
Bloody and Beauchamp Towers to see what additions could be made for
the reception of prisoners, apparently with special reference to the
arrivals from Ireland. He replies, “I have also viewed the place
behinde the Chappell, and considered and do approve the annex’d
draught proposed to be built wch I take to be as Large as ye place
will afford containing 15 square and if it be well built in 3 storeys,
Cellars and garretts it will cost £600. As to the number of Prisoners
the place may hold I can only report wt number of rooms each place
contains. Beauchamp Tower hath a large Kitching 2 large rooms and 2
small servants rooms. Bloody Tower hath a kitching one room and one
closet. The new building may contain 9 single rooms, besides cellars
and garrets and a kitching, all wch is humbly submitted.”
In the early years of Queen Anne’s reign there were a good many sent
to the Tower, taken in the French wars, but no state prisoners. But
in 1712 a notable attempt was made on a famous public man, Sir Robert
Walpole. He had been in Parliament since the queen’s accession, and
had displayed such brilliant ability as a financier as to induce the
Duke of Marlborough to give him office in the Government. But his
Whiggism, moderate as it was, offended Harley and Mrs. Masham, who
gained continually more ascendency over the queen, and Harley intrigued
shamefully against him, and brought a vague charge of breach of trust
in office and of corruption. It was a thoroughly unjust charge, but on
the strength of it he was sent to the Tower and expelled from the House
of Commons. But public opinion was roused by the injustice, and largely
withdrew its confidence from the Tory ministry. Whilst he remained in
the prison he was visited by great people, and his constituency (King’s
Lynn) returned him again as its member. He remained in confinement from
February to July, and employed his time in writing political pamphlets.