Tower, varies in breadth from 100 feet on the east to 110 feet on the
north, and 120 feet on the west or City side. Along the south or river
front it is only 40 feet broad, probably because on that side it was
covered by the wharf, the narrow limits of which did not permit any
great force of assailants to be drawn up upon it; besides which the
tower covering Traitors’ Gate, and the two small postern bridges which
it was convenient to have towards the wharf and river, did not allow
any great breadth of ditch.
The ditch was not only broad, but of great depth, so that when filled
to the level of high water it was scarcely to be passed, and indeed
when the water was low, the mud which accumulated there, and which
made it of late years an unhealthy nuisance, must have been quite as
formidable as a defence. Nevertheless, care was taken to cleanse it,
and the “Liber Albus” informs us that, in the reign of Edward III.,
the penalty for bathing in the Tower fosse, or in the Thames near the
Tower, was death! (vol. i., p. xlix.) Its exterior circuit is computed
at 3,156 feet.
Also, from the great height of the ground to the west and north, the
counterscarp is so very high as to be in itself a considerable obstacle
to crossing the ditch, although, no doubt, this was in other respects
advantageous to besiegers. Besides the main bridge, the ditch was
crossed by St. Thomas’s Tower and the dam between Galleyman and Iron
Gate, all of which served to hold up the water. There were also the
posterns of Iron Gate, Byward, and Cradle Tower.
No doubt the Conqueror’s ditch, even when deepened by Longchamp, was
fed by the Thames; and the water rose and fell with the tide. The
intervention of the wharf and the St. Thomas’s sluice-gate were devised
to make the water in the ditch independent of the tide, and thus add
materially to the strength of the defences. The ditch was drained and
its bottom raised and levelled by the Duke of Wellington during his
constabulate. There are seen in the modern brick revetment of the
counterscarp a number of walled-up arches, resembling sewer-mouths,
which appear to have been intended to facilitate the mining the glacis
in the event of a siege.
The outwork in advance of Middle Tower, though its ditch is filled
up, and its other buildings removed, is still indicated by a line of
stockades, which contain the ticket-office and a small engine-house.
Here stood the Lion Tower, and the Royal Menagerie; and this whole
_tête-de-pont_ was further protected by a smaller tower and drawbridge
of its own, shown in some of the early drawings.
Lions were a part of the royal state, and lodged in the Tower bulwark,
in the reign of Henry I. The Emperor Frederick, in 1235, sent Henry
II. three leopards; and, in 1252, Henry III. received a white bear
from Norway, for whose sustenance, with his keeper, the sheriffs of
London provided fourpence daily, with a muzzle and iron chain, to keep
him when “extra aquam,” and a stout cord to hold him when a-fishing
in the Thames. In 1254, Louis of France sent the king an elephant.
He was brought from Sandwich to the Tower, where the sheriffs were
to build him a strong and suitable house, 40 feet by 20 feet, and to
support him and his keeper. Edward I. and Edward II. kept lions here.
At a time when the allowance for an esquire was one penny per day, a
lion had a quarter of mutton and three-halfpence for the keeper; and,
afterwards, sixpence was the lion’s allowance; the same for a leopard,
and three-halfpence for the keeper. In 16 Edward III., there were a
lion and a lioness, a leopard, and two cat-lions. In 1543, the Duke
of Najara saw here four large and fierce lions, and two leopards. The
menagerie was finally closed about the year 1830. Its establishment on
this particular spot was probably due to Henry III.
The whole outward space was, in 1597, called the Bulwark, and sometimes
the Spur-yard.
HISTORY.
Having decided to build an “Arx Palatina,” and having some years’
experience of the value of the proposed site as a temporary camp, the
Conqueror at length determined to erect a regular castle, and entrusted
the work to Gundulf, a monk of Bec, who, in 1077, soon after his
arrival in England, was consecrated Bishop of Rochester.
Gundulf brought with him from Normandy some reputation as an architect,
which vocation he pursued in this country. Rochester Keep, that strong
but graceful tower, placed so judiciously above the ancient passage
of the Medway, and long attributed to the bishop, is now known to be
of later date; and the only existing buildings, besides the White
Tower, which can safely be attributed to him, are the north tower of
Rochester Cathedral, parts of the old crypt, and perhaps a small part
of its west front; also the very perfect and unaltered shell of Malling
Keep, known as St. Leonard’s Tower; possibly the broad, massive tower
of the adjacent church, and, it may be, the Norman portions of that of
Dartford. These remains, however, the White Tower, and the testimony of
many generations, may be regarded as sufficient for the confirmation of
his fame.
A direct evidence for the employment of Gundulf upon the White Tower
is afforded by the “Textus Roffensis,” written about 1143, or within
eighty years of the Conquest, and printed by Hearne. This record
preserves incidentally the fact that Gundulf, while so employed, lodged
at the house of Eadmer Anhœnde, a burgess of London, and a donor to the
bishop’s church at Rochester, where he directed his body and that of
his wife to be buried, and to have an annual obit.[5]
Gundulf was appointed bishop in 1077, and probably his first attention
was given to his cathedral, so that it is supposed he did not commence
the Tower until 1078, up to which time the ground was occupied by
certain temporary defences.
Gundulf reached the age of eighty-four, and lived till 1108, that
is, through the reigns of the Conqueror and Rufus, and to the ninth
of Henry I.; it is, therefore, certain that he lived to see the keep
completed, perhaps by Rufus; and he most probably made some progress
in the walls of the _enceinte_, and the buildings of the palace, and
perhaps of the Wakefield Tower.
The fortress designed by the Conqueror no doubt included very much of
the space within the present walls. Less would scarcely suffice to
contain a citadel, a palace, and an arsenal; and the liberties were
evidently of no greater area than was necessary.
The west boundary line runs but a few yards outside the counterscarp
of the ditch, and includes only what may be called a narrow glacis,
and nothing of the open space or esplanade usually reserved around a
fortress. It is, however, probable that no permanent exterior defences
were executed by the Conqueror, and that those first commenced were
the curtains from the Wakefield to the present Broad Arrow Tower, and
the cross walls of the Wardrobe Gallery and Cold Harbour, which, with
the keep, included the space set apart for the palace. This was for
many centuries known as the inner ward; and the Wardrobe and Lanthorn
Towers and those of the Cold Harbour Gatehouse, all now destroyed, are
represented in the reign of Elizabeth as cylindrical, and resembling
in design the Wakefield Tower, which is late Norman. It is, therefore,
probable that the old inner or palace ward was first completed.
The rest of the _enceinte_, forming what is now known as the inner
ward, could not, however, have been much later. According to the
“Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” Gervase, and Le Livere, Rufus was, in 1097,
building about the Tower a wall of sufficient magnitude, with the
new hall at Westminster, to be the cause of heavy taxation, and the
subject of general discontent, augmented, no doubt, by the impregnable
character of his work. The existing curtain of the inner ward, being
from 9 feet to 12 feet thick, from 39 feet to 40 feet high, and of
sound but rude masonry, cannot be later than John, by which reign
the wall of Rufus could not have fallen into decay. It is far more
probable, and quite consistent with the dimensions and character of the
work, that this was the actual wall commenced by Rufus, and upon which
he was employed in 1097.
Bell Tower, indeed, which seems to bond into the curtain, and the base
of which presents masonry very like that of Wakefield, is octagonal,
and its vaulting can scarcely be earlier than John; but Devereux Tower,
which is cylindrical outside, and has round-headed recesses in its
polygonal basement chamber, may be as old as Wakefield, and therefore
in substance the work of Rufus. The vaulting is later, but both may
have been, as at Wakefield, taken down to the first floor at a later
period, to which the vaulting may belong. Beauchamp, Bowyer, and all
the other towers on this wall are evidently later insertions; but the
wall itself, where it remains, as on the west and part of the east and
south fronts, is of a very early character, and not unlike the wall
of John at Corfe and the earlier one attributed to Robert Consul at
Cardiff.
Most of the chroniclers record a violent storm that swept over London
towards the close of the eleventh century. Le Livere dates it Friday,
27th October, and Malmesbury, 28th November, 1091, and says it unroofed
St. Mary-le-Bow, and destroyed 600 houses, as houses then were.
Stowe adds that the White Tower was damaged “by tempest and winde sore
shaken,” and that it was repaired by Rufus and Henry I.; but he gives
no authority for this statement, which the extreme solidity of the
building renders very improbable. The outworks, however, both wall and
towers, if in course of construction, with scaffolding up, might very
well have suffered severely.
The Tower, therefore, of the close of the reign of Rufus, and of those
of Henry I. and Stephen, was probably composed of the White Tower with
a palace ward upon its south-east side, and a wall, probably that we
now see, and certainly along its general course, including what is now
known as the inner ward. No doubt there was a ditch, but probably not a
very formidable one.
Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, and the faithful and rapacious
minister of Rufus,—“pacitator Ranulphus, vir pessimus,”—by his severe
exactions greatly promoted the works of the Tower. Singularly enough,
he is the first person known to have been imprisoned there. Henry, on
his accession, and by the advice of his council, 15th August, 1100,
shut up Flambard in the Tower. Palgrave says he was lodged in the
uppermost or council-chamber of the White Tower, under the custody
of Walter de Magnaville, the hereditary constable. Probably his
imprisonment was only intended to satisfy the popular cry, for two
shillings, at that time a considerable sum, was allowed for his daily
sustenance. He employed it, as is said, in feasting his keepers; and
having received a rope in a flagon, took advantage of their drunken
state to let himself down from the window of the south gallery, on
the night of the 4th February, 1101, taking his pastoral staff with
him. The rope proved too short for the descent of 65 feet, and he was
injured by a fall, but he escaped in safety to Normandy, and, as is
well known, lived to recover his see of Durham, where he completed the
cathedral, added a moat to the Palatine castle, founded Norham on the
Tweed, built Framwell Gate bridge, and endowed the hospital of Kepyer.
The Tower was probably from the first a state prison, for in 1106 the
Earl of Mortaigne, taken with Robert Duke of Normandy by Henry I., was,
says Eadmer, shut up there. The Pipe Roll of 21 Henry I. records “£17.
0s. 6d., inoperatione Turris Lond.”
In the time of Stephen the Tower was regarded as impregnable. Geoffrey,
grandson of Geoffrey de Magnaville, the companion of the Conqueror, and
the third hereditary constable, was created Earl of Essex by the king,
who in 1140 kept Whitsun in the Tower. “Eodem anno, 1140, in Pentecoste
resedit Rex Londiniæ in Turri, tantum modo Episcopo Sagiensi presente:
cæteri vel fastidierunt, vel timuerunt venire.” [R. de Hoveden.] The
new earl proved false, and shifted his allegiance to the empress, who,
by charter in 1141, confirmed him in his earldom and the constableship.
When the power of Maud declined, the citizens, to whom Geoffrey was
as odious as his fortress, laid siege to it. Their efforts were so
unsuccessful that on one occasion the earl made a raid as far as
Fulham, and captured the bishop.
In 1143 the earl trusted himself in the royal presence at St. Alban’s,
depending on the king’s word. The temptation to obtain the Tower was
too great,—“magis ex necessitate quam honestate,”—he was detained,
and the Tower was his ransom. Stephen held it until 1153, close upon
the conclusion of his reign, when, by the Treaty of Winchester, he
gave it up to Richard de Lacy, the Justiciary, who was to hold it
until Stephen’s death, when it was to pass to Henry, which accordingly
was done in 1154. It is clear, therefore, that at that time the
fortifications of the Tower were both complete and strong; and this, in
the absence of a wet ditch, which it will be shown did not then exist,
could scarcely be the case with walls of inferior strength to those now
seen.
Henry II. is said to have placed Becket in command of the Tower, the
government of which had ceased to be hereditary. But there is no proof
of this, or that Becket repaired it; though at a later period, indeed,
one of his demands, as archbishop, was the custody of Rochester Castle
and the Tower. By this time “London’s lasting shame” had attained its
gloomy reputation, and Fitz-Stephen describes the “Arx Palatina” as
“great and strong, with encircling walls rising from a deep foundation,
and built with mortar tempered with the blood of beasts.”
The Pipe Rolls of this reign contain frequent entries of large sums
issued for the repair of the king’s houses in the Tower, his chapel,
and his gaol. In 2 Henry II., 6s. 1d. was paid for carrying the king’s
breastplates to the Tower; but the regular series of accounts does
not begin until 13 Henry II., and ends with 34. The entries for
Westminster and the Tower are also much mixed up together, though
sometimes distinct. Thus in 13 Henry II. the king’s houses in the
two places and the queen’s chamber cost £64, and, in 19 Henry II.,
£60 was paid for the repairs of the Tower and of the houses in it.
In the preceding year the king’s houses in the bailey of the Tower
cost £21. In 20 Henry II., Alnod, the engineer, had £6. 13s. 4d. for
works at the Tower, and afterwards 100s. Similar payments continually
occur, sometimes for lead for the repairs of the chapel, sometimes for
carriage of timber and planks, sometimes for the kitchen, the gateways
of the gaol, the repairs of the houses, and sometimes for the Tower
itself.
The necessity for each expenditure is often certified to by the view
of two officers, Edward Blund and William Magnus; the works were
executed by the engineer Alnod; and the brief, authorising payment, was
signed either by the king himself, or by Richard de Lucy or Ranulph de
Glanville, no doubt as justiciars. The sums paid varied from 1s. 4d. to
£64, and the total for the thirteen years of which the rolls remain, is
£215. 15s. and 50 marks.
When in February, 1190, Cœur de Lion departed from Normandy to the
East, he placed the Tower in charge of William Longchamp, Bishop of
Ely and Chancellor, sharing the power of chief justiciary with Pudsey,
Bishop of Durham, to which the Pope added the office of legate. These
combined honours seem to have turned Longchamp’s head. Always of
intense activity of character, he spurned all colleagues in his power.
His first act on reaching England seems to have been to provide for his
personal security by girdling the Tower with a wall and deep ditch,
which he proposed to fill from the Thames. In this, however, he failed,
after spending a large sum of money.[6]
The wall was probably that of the outer ward, which would be necessary
to retain the banks of the ditch, and the commencement of that which
still remains. The failure could scarcely be in the admission of the
Thames, which required only a certain depth of excavation, but was
rather in the retaining it full at low tide, so as to make it really a
wet ditch. This important object was attained in a later reign, by a
new and ingenious arrangement. In his excavations, Longchamp encroached
upon land belonging to Trinity Church, East Smithfield, and took a mill
from St. Katherine’s Hospital. These trespasses were much complained
of, and seem to have been the same on account of which a compensating
rent-charge was afterwards paid by Edward I. There is still a small
burial-ground on the east glacis of the Tower, which is said to be a
part of the land then taken. There was also an earlier trespass on
Church lands by the constables, for Geoffrey, Earl of Essex, took by
force from Trinity Priory, in East Smithfield, land near the Tower to
make a vineyard, which was not restored to that church until towards
1137.
Longchamp, whose patent directed the lieges to obey him, even as
the king himself, commenced by imprisoning Bishop Pudsey, his rival
justiciar. His unpopularity was fostered by Prince John, who headed
a party against him, and took occasion of his ill-treatment of the
Archbishop of York to summon Longchamp to appear before a council at
Loddon, by Reading. Longchamp refused compliance, but retired before
John’s superior force to London, where he entered the Tower with all
his train, pressed by the citizens, who took part against him and
blockaded the fortress by land and water. John, with many barons and
bishops, reached London on the 8th of October, 1191, and held a council
in the chapter-house, in St. Paul’s Churchyard, on the 9th, summoning
the people by the sound of the bell. Here the Archbishop of Rouen
and William Mareschal produced Richard’s declaration from Messina,
limiting the independent powers of the justiciar, whom the meeting
then deposed by acclamation. Four earls and as many bishops conveyed
this sentence to Longchamp, who fell senseless upon the floor. On the
following morning, at an early hour, John assembled an immense host in
East Smithfield, a great green plain near the Tower, and summoned the
justiciar to a parley. He surrendered upon terms at once, far too soon
for his credit, and marched out with his followers and household stuff
to Bermondsey, whence with much difficulty and through various dangers
he reached Normandy.[7] The Archbishop of Rouen then took charge of the
Tower; but the chancellor, as is well known, retained or resumed his
office, and on November 21, 1194, the well-known William Fitz-Osbert
impleaded his brother Richard in the Curia Regis (“Rot. Cur. Regis.”
xi., xvii.) for having said, “In recompense for the money taken from
me by the chancellor within the Tower of London, I would lay out forty
marks to purchase a chain in which to hang both king and chancellor.”
Various entries in the Pipe Rolls of Richard show that the usual
repairs of the Tower, and especially of the royal apartments therein,
still went on. Unfortunately, although the sums are given, the detail
of their outlay is very generally omitted.
The entries extend from the first to the tenth of the reign, and relate
to nine years, during which about £610 was spent on the Tower and its
houses. The recipient was sometimes Wm. Puincell, the constable; at
others, Jordan de Turri, Richard le Duc, John Fitz-Erlecum, and others.
Sometimes under the king’s brief, sometimes the chancellor’s. In one
year, lime cost £46. 9s. 6d. In the first of the king, 50 marcs were
spent upon the “Royal Chapel in the Tower.” The ditches are mentioned 5
Richard I.
Longchamp’s reign was so short that it is difficult to understand how
he managed to execute as much as he undoubtedly did. The rolls of the
early years of Richard I. do not indeed show above one or two hundred
pounds of outlay, but the chancellor had the command of other funds;
and one cause of his excessive unpopularity with the citizens was the
avidity with which he took upon himself to tax them.
Prince John, when he succeeded to the throne in 1199, was not
inattentive to the wants of the Tower. In his two first years, Elias,
the engineer, was employed upon the king’s houses and works, and
similar entries appear in the fifth, tenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth
years. In the sixteenth the sum was considerable—£117. 15s. 8d.; and in
the seventeenth the charge, £12, is for building the mud or “clay wall
between the Tower [precinct] and city,” which wall is often referred to
in later surveys. On the whole, the Pipe Rolls of the reign are scanty
as regards the Tower, but they are in some degree replaced by entries
upon the Mise, Close, and Patent Rolls, which show that it was kept up
as a royal residence, and that the king occasionally stayed there.
In 1209 and 1210, 9s. 4d. were given in alms to one hundred poor there;
and in the latter year Osmund, a knight bound for Poictou, received
a gift of ten marcs, and, to buy a horse, a hundred shillings from
the king. This was given in the “Church of St. Peter at the Tower of
London”; and is the earliest known mention of that building. Here also,
on Sunday, the morrow of St. Philip and Jacob, Steffan, the messenger
of the emperor, received half a marc on his return to his lord, and
other payments were made here.
In 1212 the Archdeacon of Durham and Philip de Ulecote are ordered to
send in all haste to London thirty carratas (cartloads) of lead for
covering the Tower; and, in 1213, among orders for repairs for the
castles of Rochester, Canterbury, and Guildford, is mention of carriage
of timber and “busca” (faggots), for the works of the Castle of Dover
and the Tower of London. It was about this time that the city ditch
was deepened, and widened to a breadth of 200 feet. In 1215, Henry de
Nevill was to supply ten oaks for the works at the Tower, five from
within Havering Park and five from outside it.
It was also in 1215 that the barons seized upon London, and that the
Tower was given over to be held by the Archbishop of Canterbury until
Assumption Day as a pledge for the king’s performance of certain
engagements. The rights of either party to the Tower were suspended,
and the king was not to reinforce the garrison. The great charter
was signed 15th June. The barons, however, continued virtually in
possession until the arrival of the Dauphin, to whom it was given up in
1216, and by him held until he left the kingdom.
Mr. Hardy, in his valuable “Itinerary of King John,” shows that he
executed instruments at the Tower upon seventy-two days during his
reign of seventeen years and a half. In 1204, he was there 28–30th
January, 27–30th May, 2–3rd November. In 1205, 28th April and 13–16th
August. In 1207, 2nd July. In 1208, 21st January, 10th, 19th–21st
February. In 1209, 9th October. In 1210, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 19th
February, 2nd May, and 27th October. In 1211, 1–3rd and 18th April. In
1212, 18–20th May; 2–4th June; and 20–22nd September. In 1213, 16th and
17th April; and 21–23rd, 26–29th December. In 1214, 2–5th, 12th, 13th
January; and 29th–31st October. In 1215, 1–6th and 14–18th March; and
19th April.
As Henry III. has usually been regarded as the builder of much of
the Tower as it now stands, and did undoubtedly execute considerable
works there, it will be convenient here to examine into the probable
condition of the fortress at the time of his accession.