CHAPTER I

THE TOWER OF LONDON

[Illustration: _The Duke of Orleans a Prisoner in the Tower_

(_From a MS. in the British Museum_)]

THE

TOWER OF LONDON

BY

LORD RONALD SUTHERLAND GOWER, F.S.A.

ONE OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

With Numerous Illustrations

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I.

[Illustration]

LONDON

GEORGE BELL & SONS

1901

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION xi

CHAPTER I. THE BUILDINGS 1

II. THE TOWER UNDER THE NORMAN AND PLANTAGENET KINGS 79

III. THE EDWARDS 85

IV. RICHARD II. 90

V. THE LANCASTRIANS 100

VI. THE WARS OF THE ROSES 107

VII. THE TUDOR KINGS—HENRY VII. 120

VIII. HENRY VIII. 124

IX. EDWARD VI. 169

X. MARY TUDOR 181

XI. QUEEN ELIZABETH 202

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

COLOURED PLATE

The Duke of Orleans a Prisoner in the Tower. (From a MS.

in the British Museum) _Frontispiece_

PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES

PAGE

The Tower. (From a sketch by H. Colls) 1

Plan of the Tower in 1597, by Haiward and Gascoyne 6

The Byward Tower 8

Postern Gate in the Byward Tower 10

Yeoman Porter of the Tower, bearing his emblem of office 12

The Wakefield and Bloody Towers 14

Traitor’s Gate, time of George III. 16

The Bloody Tower, looking towards Traitor’s Gate 20

Groining in Ceiling of the Bloody Tower 22

The Council Chamber in the Governor’s House 26

Prison in the Governor’s House 28

The Beauchamp Tower 30

Prison in the Beauchamp Tower 32

Prison Chamber in the Beauchamp Tower 34

Interior of St Peter’s Chapel 36

Monument of Sir Richard Cholmondeley and his Wife, in St

Peter’s Chapel 40

Tomb of the Blunt Family in St Peter’s Chapel 42

Stone Staircase in the White Tower 54

Interior of St John’s Chapel 58

Horse and Foot Armour (XVIth Century) 64

German Armour (XVIth Century) 66

Nuremberg Armour (XVIth Century) 68

Horse and Foot Armour (XVIIth Century) 70

Horse and Foot Armour (XVIIth Century) 72

Horse and Foot Armour (XVIIth Century) 74

Site of the Scaffold on Tower Hill 96

The Wakefield Tower, time of George III. 116

Prison beneath the Wakefield Tower 118

Queen Anne Boleyn. (From an engraving after a contemporary

portrait) 130

John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. (From the drawing by Holbein

at Windsor) 134

Sir Thomas More. (From the drawing by Holbein at Windsor) 138

A Daughter of Sir Thomas More, supposed to be Mrs Roper.

(From the drawing by Holbein at Hammerfield) 140

Queen Mary Tudor. (From a portrait at Latimer) 182

Lady Jane Grey. (From the portrait at Madresfield Court by

Lucas van Heere) 184

Lord Guildford Dudley. (From the portrait at Madresfield Court

by Lucas van Heere) 186

Lady Jane Grey. (From an engraving by Wijngaerde, after the

portrait by Holbein) 190

Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk. (From the portrait by Joannes

Corvus in the National Portrait Gallery) 197

Robert, Earl of Essex. (From a contemporary engraving) 222

BLOCKS

The Jewel House 18

Doorway of the Jewel House 18

St Thomas’s Tower from the Wharf 104

View in the Inner Ballium 112

All Hallows, Barking 120

The Curfew Tower from the Moat 144

Traitor’s Gate 148

Heading Block and Axe 150

St Peter’s Chapel and Place of Execution 154

St Thomas’s and Curfew Towers 158

Traitor’s Gate from the Bloody Tower 164

Back of the Byward Tower 168

The King’s House 174

Middle Tower 198

Queen Elizabeth’s Walk, from the Curfew Tower to the

Beauchamp Tower 208

Queen Elizabeth’s Walk, from the Beauchamp Tower to the

Curfew Tower 210

PLAN OF THE TOWER _at End_

INTRODUCTION

To the English race the Tower of London will always be the most

interesting of its Monuments; for it forms a group of buildings that

for eight centuries has been the very heart of the English capital,

and, since the victor of Hastings raised the great Keep—or White

Tower—through all the succeeding centuries, the Tower has been closely

connected with the history of England.

It would be vain to search any other city, Rome itself not excepted,

for another such group of buildings, or to match the historic interest

and splendid record of the ancient Norman structure. The Tower is

indeed rife with interest; the most dramatic events of our country’s

history during more than seven hundred years have been enacted within

or near its walls.

To see it is to conjure up a vision of scenes, some brilliant and

stately, some tragic and awful, but all full of deepest interest to the

hearts and minds of Britons, to whom the history of their land is dear.

Although several works—some voluminous, such as the two ponderous

quartos by John Bayley, published in 1825, and some more recent,

such as the histories of the Tower by Britton and Brayley, and, more

recently still, those by Lord de Ros and Doyne Bell—have appeared, I

venture to think that in writing the present account of the Tower I

have not undertaken a thankless or a useless task.

My object in giving the following book to the public has been a hope

that to those who already know the Tower some fresh knowledge may

perhaps be added to their acquaintance with that noble old pile; and

that to those who do not know it, the admirable illustrations taken

from the building itself by Messrs Colls, and the reproduction of old

views and scenes connected with the Tower from the days of Charles

the First to those of Queen Victoria, will enable them to realise its

incomparable historic interest.

Until the reign of Edward the Third the records of the Tower are

miserably meagre and scanty. It would require a far more imaginative

mind than I possess to infuse any life or movement or interest into

them. It has been my humble intention merely to narrate in this work

what is of undoubted authority as regards the history of the Tower,

and were I even capable of adding colour to the dry chronicles of

historical fact in these pages, it would be distasteful to me to try

to enhance the interest of this narrative by setting down that which

I have no good evidence for regarding as strictly true; or to attempt

to adorn the dry facts, which the old chroniclers have given us, by

imaginary incidents and tales for which there is no better evidence

than that coming from the author’s imagination. An historical novel

such as that most entertaining work the “Tower of London,” by Harrison

Ainsworth, is a delightful effort of the writer’s imagination; but

a book which professes to be a history must not be a hotch-potch of

truth and fiction. That would be the worst of literary frauds. Feeling

strongly on this matter, I must beg my readers to pardon the dulness of

my records relating to the early history of the Tower, but I can assure

them that what I have written is, as far as possible, accurate history;

and, at the same time, beg them not to be disappointed if they find no

flights of fancy in these pages.

RONALD SUTHERLAND GOWER.

ERRATUM.

The illustration at page 198 represents the Byward Tower,

not Middle Tower.

[Illustration: _The Tower of London_

(_From a Sketch by H. Colls._)]

THE TOWER

CHAPTER I

THE BUILDINGS

Nothing has come down to us of any authentic value regarding ancient

London until Tacitus writes of Londinium as a place celebrated for the

numbers of its merchants and the confluence of traffic. In the days of

the Roman occupation St Albans, then called Verolanium, was a far more

important place than Roman Londinium; and, perhaps, it was Verolanium

whereto Cæsar marched in his second descent on Britain in B.C. 54, and

which he described as a place “protected by woods and marshes.” Such

a description would equally apply to Londinium, and, for aught we can

know to the contrary, the town Cæsar describes as being surrounded by

woods and marshes may have been our capital.

To the north of Roman London stretched vast primeval forests, and where

St John’s Wood now stands, the wild boar roamed in trackless thickets.

Marshes lay to the west and south, on the sites of Westminster and

Southwark; a less likely place for the situation of a great capital,

with the exception of St Petersburg, could not be found in Europe. On

what is now Tower Hill stood a Celtic fortress, protected by the Thames

on the south, and by forests and fens on the north. This fortress was

admirably placed, protecting the approach from the seaward side of the

river, and guarding against any attack from the land side. The Romans

were evidently of this opinion, for after conquering the woad-stained

Britons, they erected a fortalice, defended by strongly fortified

walls, upon the same site.

This Roman fortress was the origin of the Tower of London.

Roman London, or rather Augusta, for so it was originally termed by the

Romans, began at a fort named the Arx Palatina, overlooking the river a

little to the south of Ludgate, a wall defended by towers, running in a

south-easterly line along the river bank to another fort on the present

site of the Tower, which was also named the Arx Palatina. Thence

the wall took a northerly direction, reaching as far as the present

Bishopsgate; it then turned due west to Cripplegate; then south by

Aldersgate to Newgate, meeting the first wall at Ludgate. Roman London

was indebted to the Emperor Constantine for these defences.[1]

Theodosius is supposed to have restored this wall in the reign of

Valentinian, but we have no further records of any work upon it until

A.D. 886, when Alfred the Great repaired it as a protection against the

Danish invaders.[2]

The late Sir Walter Besant is my authority for saying “that there is a

large piece of the Roman wall, extending 150 feet long, built over by

stores and warehouses immediately north of the Tower, just where the

old postern used to be, and where the wall abutted on the Tower.” It

should be remembered, when judging of the circumference of the Roman

wall, that London covered little more ground in those days than does

Hyde Park at present: from Ludgate to the Tower the Roman wall extended

only about a mile in length, and three and a half miles from the Tower

to Blackfriars.

There are many fragments of this old Roman wall still above ground,

and until 1763 a square Roman tower, built of alternate layers of

large square stones with bands of red tiles, one of the three that

guarded the wall, was still standing in Houndsditch. In 1857 a portion

of the Roman wall was discovered near Aldermanbury postern, whilst a

portion of a Roman bastion is still to be seen at St Giles’s Church,

Cripplegate; another fragment being visible in a street called London

Wall Street. There are more Roman remains at the Old Bailey and near

George Street, Tower Hill. Fragments are also visible near Falcon Lane,

Bush Lane, Scott’s Yard in Cornhill, and in underground warehouses and

cellars near the Tower. In the Minories there are yet more remains of

this ancient Roman wall. In Thames Street, oaken piles, which were the

foundation of the wall, have been discovered. They supported a layer

of chalk and stone courses, upon which rested large slabs of sandstone

cemented with a mixture of lime, sand, and powdered tiles. The upper

part of the wall was coated with flint, and this again was strengthened

by rows of tiles.

The most interesting of these remains, however, is in the Tower

itself—a fragment of the Roman fort or Arx Palatina (the place of

strength), which was laid bare some few years ago when some buildings

abutting on the White Tower were removed. It is built of the same

materials as the fragments of the Roman wall, and shows that William

the Conqueror not only erected the most formidable fortress in his

newly-conquered country upon the site chosen by the Romans, but that

he also incorporated the remains of their handiwork in his building.

Whether Alfred the Great restored the Arx Palatina as well as the wall

we do not know, but even if the fort were ruined, the fragment now

at the base of the White Tower would have shown the Conqueror the

value and importance of its defensive position, protecting as it did

the eastern end of the city, and guarding the seaward entrance of the

Thames. William’s site, however, covered part of the land belonging

to the ancient boundary of the Roman occupation, and to provide the

necessary space he pulled down a large portion of the Roman wall

between the spot where the White Tower now stands and the river front

of the fortress.

In the days of our first Norman kings, a single square tower or keep,

usually situated on a hill surrounded by an artificial ditch or moat,

was considered sufficient protection. One might give a long list of

such towers or keeps both in England and Normandy, for William the

First, not content with overawing the Londoners with his great tower

in their city, built others at Dover and at Exeter, at Nottingham and

at York, at Lincoln and at Durham, at Cambridge and at Huntingdon.

Under Duke Rollo and his immediate successors the Normans built their

fortresses by the side of navigable rivers, on islands, or near the

sea, since these fortresses were not merely destined as defences, but

also for places of safety. They were, in fact, places of refuge for

the people of the surrounding country, who fled to them with all their

possessions, and particularly their live stock, at the approach of an

enemy. By their situation, safety, if necessary, could be obtained by

taking flight on the neighbouring river or sea.

In Normandy—at Fécamp, at Eu, at Bayeux, at Jumiége, and at Oisel, to

name but a few of these Norman keeps—this custom obtained. At Rouen,

as in London, the principal fortress built by the Norman duke stood

by the riverside, and not on the hills at the back of the town. None

of these places mentioned above were stronger or more imposing than

the great Norman keep in London, known for centuries as the White

Tower, receiving that title at first, probably from the whiteness of

its stone, and in later times from the continued coatings of whitewash

which it received. Of the many castles in Normandy and Touraine of the

same period as the White Tower, that of Loches resembles it most nearly

in size and form. Loches is now almost a ruin, as are most of the

Conqueror’s castles, but the great White Tower remains intact despite

the storms, sieges, and fires through which it has passed during eight

centuries. It is still the Arx Palatina of London and of the British

Empire.

Although in situation the Tower cannot compare with such grandly-placed

castles as Dover or Bamborough, Conway or Carnarvon, or vie in beauty

of scenery with Warwick or Windsor, it remains the most historic

building in our land; not even the mausoleum fortress of Hadrian in old

Rome can compete in interest with the Norman fortress—palace—and State

prison of London; Edinburgh Castle alone approaches it as regards its

influence on the history of the capital it defended, for the northern

fortress was also the home of its national sovereigns for centuries,

its country’s chief prison, the store-house of its regalia, and its

city’s strong place of defence; and, like the Tower, it has been

guarded from its foundation up to the present time without a break, by

its country’s armed defenders.

Every part of the Tower of London is pregnant with history and

tradition. The proudest names of England—Howard and Percy, Arundel

and Beauchamp, Stafford and Devereux—gain added interest from their

association with the Tower and its story. Above all, it is for ever

honoured as having been the last home of Eliot, of Russell, and of

Sidney; it has been sanctified by More and Fisher, “Martyrs,” as a

writer on the Tower has well said, “for the ancient, as also was Anne

Askew for the purer faith.” And to Anne Askew’s name I would add that

of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, one of the first and noblest of

English martyrs.

When William lay dying in the Priory of Saint Gervais, near Rouen, in

the summer of 1087, the Great White Tower which he had built in London

had been in existence for some ten years. Probably only that tower was

then completed, with the great ballium wall between the Keep and the

river. Stowe, the earliest English writer on antiquarian subjects,

writing in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, has told us in his priceless

“Survey of London,” that the White Tower was completed in 1078. Its

architect, Bishop Gundulf of Rochester, was not consecrated until 1077,

and was then occupied in building Rochester Cathedral and a portion

of Rochester Castle; the keep, which still rears its ruined walls

over Rochester and the Medway, was not built until a century later.

In Mr G. J. Clarke’s work on “Mediæval Military Architecture”—a work

as important to students of English architecture of the Middle Ages

as is that of Viollet le Duc to French architecture—we are told that

Gundulf died about the year 1108, at the good old age of eighty-four,

in the reign of the first Henry. Possibly the Palace at the Tower and

even the Wakefield Tower had been commenced by Gundulf, as well as some

buildings of the inner ward, but this is uncertain. These buildings

would include the great curtain wall extending from the Wakefield Tower

to the Broad Arrow Tower, and the cross wall of the Wardrobe Gallery,

and the building known as Coldharbour, these being the buildings which

formed the nucleus of the palace of the Norman kings.

The Wardrobe, the Lanthorn, and Coldharbour Towers have perished; the

Lanthorn Tower has been rebuilt. In 1091, according to Stowe, the White

Tower was, “by tempest and wind sore shaken,” so much so that it had

to be repaired by William Rufus and Henry I. In the same year that

Rufus built the Great Hall at Westminster he surrounded the Tower with

a wall, causing his subjects much discontent thereby, especially as he

forced them to work at these defences.

Sir Walter Besant recommended—and no one spoke with higher authority on

aught appertaining to old London and its history—any one who desires to

make himself acquainted with the appearance of the Tower in the days of

Queen Elizabeth, to study the plan drawn up by Haiward and Gascoigne

in 1597, which they styled “A True and Exact Draught of the Tower

Liberties.” In that plan it will be seen at a glance that the fortress,

palace, armoury, arsenal, and State prison of England’s capital,

had its principal entry towards the west—in fact, that the western

approach was the only entrance by land, the eastern entrance, known as

the Iron Gate, being but seldom used. Supposing that the visitor of

Elizabeth’s day had passed through the no longer existing Bulwark Gate,

he would next pass under another gate, called from its proximity to

the menagerie of wild animals, the Lion Gate, which was connected by a

walled causeway over the moat, about a hundred feet in width, with the

Lion Tower, which has disappeared; from the Lion Gate, which has also

been pulled down, the scarp would be reached.

[Illustration: _Plan of the Tower in 1597_

_by Haiward and Gascoyne._]

The Lion Tower, with its barbicans and _tête-du-pont_, had the honour

of a moat to itself, but all this has disappeared, Lion Gate, tower,

barbican, _tête-du-pont_, have all vanished with the lions and other

wild beasts which were kept here from the days of the Norman kings

until the year 1834, when they were removed to Regent’s Park and formed

the nucleus of the Zoological Gardens.

Henry I. had kept some lions and leopards at his palace of Woodstock,

and on the occasion of Frederic II. of Germany sending three leopards

to Henry III., these animals were sent to the Tower. Besides lions and

leopards, an elephant and a bear were also about that time in the Tower

menagerie. In 1252 the Sheriffs of London were ordered to pay fourpence

a day for the keep of the bear, and also to provide a muzzle and chain

for Bruin while he caught fish in the Thames. During the reign of the

three first Edwards, the lions and other animals had food given them

to the value of sixpence a day, their keeper only receiving three

half-pence per diem. One of the Plantagenet Court officials held the

office, and was styled “The Master of the King’s Bears and Apes.” In

old views of the Tower can be seen the circular pit or pen in which,

down to the days of James I., bear-baiting took place—to watch this

brutal “sport” being one of this not altogether admirable monarch’s

favourite amusements.

In his account of a visit paid to the Tower in the reign of Elizabeth,

the German traveller, Paul Hentzner, writes of the Royal menagerie as

follows:—

“On coming out of the Tower we were led to a small house close by,

where are kept variety of creatures—viz. three lionesses, one lion

of great size, called Edward VI., from his having been born in that

reign; a tyger; a lynx; a wolf excessively old; this is a very scarce

animal in England, so that their sheep and cattle stray about in great

numbers, free from any dangers, though without anybody to keep them;

there is besides, a porcupine, and an eagle. All these creatures are

kept in a remote place, fitted up for the purpose with wooden lattices

at the Queen’s expense.”

Hentzner, who visited England as tutor to a young German nobleman,

gives a vivid account of what was considered most noteworthy in London

in the days of Elizabeth, and in this the Tower looms large. His

Journal was translated into English from the German and published by

Horace Walpole, who had it printed at Strawberry Hill. We shall meet

with Hentzner again in the White Tower.

Early in the eighteenth century there were eleven lions in the Tower,

and in the _Freeholder_ Addison alludes to the Tower menagerie; later

on, Dr Johnson would growlingly inquire of newly-arrived Scotchmen in

the metropolis, “Have you seen the lions?” In the place where formerly

lions roared and bears were baited, the ticket office and visitors’

refreshment rooms now stand. In France or Germany here would probably

be an attractive restaurant or café; but in these matters we English

are woefully behind our neighbours, and it would be as difficult to

find an appetising luncheon in the Tower as it is to understand why the

art of cooking is so neglected in our country.

Near here, in 1843, when the moat of the fortress was drained of its

waters and cleared of its rubbish, many stone cannon shot were

found, shot which had probably been used when the Yorkists besieged the

Tower in 1460 and cannonaded it from the other side of the Thames. In

Elizabeth’s day this portion of the fortress was named the Bulwark or

the Spur-yard—the origin of the latter term is not known.

[Illustration: _The Byward Tower._]

The moat, some hundred feet wide at its widest, was formerly flooded

with the waters of the Thames, and is now used as a parade and

playground for the garrison. It dates back to the Norman Conquest,

and was deepened by William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely in the reign of

Richard I. Death was the penalty for bathing in its waters in the reign

of Edward III.—a severe law, but one may hope that a sentence so severe

for so apparently trivial an offence was not actually enforced; perhaps

death was the result of some one having taken his bath in the Tower

moat in the unsanitary days of Edward III. When the Duke of Wellington

was Constable of the Tower, he had the moat filled up to its present

level, and the river waters which had, daily, during eight centuries

supplied it by their ebb and flow, ceased to encircle the old walls.

Doubtless the fortress gained in healthiness by the change, but from a

picturesque point of view the general effect of the building has been

greatly lessened since the days when the old walls and bastions were

reflected by the waters of the moat, nor can its towers and turrets

appear so effective as when they were mirrored in surrounding water.

Four bridges with their causeways spanned the moat. To the west stood

the Lion Gate bridge; a second was (and still is), that of the Middle

Tower; the third faces the river at Traitor’s Gate under St Thomas’s

Tower; and the fourth is that at the eastern extremity of the fortress,

near to a dam which connected the tower above the Iron Gate with the

tower formerly called Galleyman’s Tower, or “the tower leading to the

Iron Gate.”

Middle Tower, the first by which the present visitor to the Tower

enters the fortress, has been greatly modernised in its upper part.

Since the destruction of the Lion Tower it has become the first gate

of the Citadel, its name having been gained by its original position

between the Lion and Byward Towers, to the latter of which it formed

the outwork: it protects the western and landward approach to the

fortress. Originally the Middle Tower was coated with Portland stone.

It has a double portcullis, which can still be used if required. In

front of this Tower, in mediæval days, stood a drawbridge, of which

however, no trace remains, the moat now being spanned by a bridge of

stone 130 feet in length and 20 feet in width at its narrowest part.

It was in front of this gateway that Elizabeth, on returning a Queen to

the Tower, which she had left five years before a prisoner, alighted

from her horse and kneeling on the ground returned thanks to God, “who

had,” as Bishop Burnet writes in his “History of the Reformation,”

“delivered her from a danger so imminent; and for an escape as

miraculous as that of David.” To the right of the Middle Tower a road

leads to Tower Wharf, from whence one of the most striking views in

the whole of London is seen. Before the spectator stretches the famous

“Pool,” that wide space of ever-shifting water on which rides all the

shipping of the mighty river. It is a view which combines past and

present; all the stir, the toil and traffic of the Thames lies before

one, and for background rise the pinnacles, towers, and embattled

walls of the grim old fortress, looking down on the ever-changing but

time-defying stream.

Returning to the Middle Tower, and passing along the causeway which

spans the moat, the Byward Tower is reached. The Byward Tower forms the

gatehouse of the Outer Ward of the Tower, and dates back to the reign

of Richard II. In form this tower is rectangular, it has three floors,

and rejoices in a portcullis which, like that of the Middle Tower,

could still be worked. In the time of Henry VIII. the Byward Tower

was known by the name of the Warding Gate. Upon the right-hand side of

the entrance there is a fine vaulted chamber, some 15 feet in size,

which is supposed to have been used as an oratory during the Middle

Ages. It is now occupied by the Warders of the Tower, and is called

the Warders’ Parlour; with its loopholed windows and ancient stone

fireplace, it is one of the best preserved interior portions of the

fortress. There is a corresponding chamber on the opposite side of the

gateway. Attached to the Byward Tower, on its south-eastern side, is

a low tower intended to protect the postern bridge which here crosses

the moat towards the river side. It has an old oak door, half hidden

by a sentry box, over which is a vaulted roof dating from the reign

of Richard II., and this, with the narrow tortuous passage, forms a

picturesque corner of the Tower buildings.

[Illustration: _Postern Gate in the Byward Tower._]

To mention the Warders of the Tower necessitates something more

than a passing allusion to that most worthy body of veterans, since

the Warders of the Tower of London belong to the most interesting

of the old fortress’s institutions. Yeomen-Warders is the proper

designation of the forty or so old soldiers who guard the Tower, who

show and describe its different parts to visitors, and whose civility

and patience are matters for the highest encomium. Originally these

guardians were employed by the Lieutenant of the Tower to guard the

prisoners committed to the State prison under his charge. But in the

reign of Edward VI. the Duke of Somerset, after his liberation from the

Tower, caused those warders who had had charge of his person during

his imprisonment to be appointed, as a reward for their attention,

extra Yeomen of the Guard. And from that period dates, with some

modifications, the costume still worn by the Tower Yeomen. The Warders

of the Tower are all picked men, and have all been appointed to their

posts for good service in the Army. In the old days when the State

trials were held at Westminster Hall the “Gentleman-Gaoler”—as that

Warder was named whose affair it was to escort and guard the State

prisoner to and from his trial, and who carried the processional

axe (still kept in the Queen’s House) before the prisoner with the

edge turned away from him on the journey to Westminster, and almost

always with its edge towards him as he returned, as a sign that he was

condemned to die—was the principal of the Tower Warders. The office

is still maintained, inasmuch as he takes the front place on State

occasions of ceremony, when the old axe is taken from its honoured

repose in the Lieutenant’s study in the Queen’s House.

The Warders of the Tower must not, however, be confounded with the

Yeomen of the Guard, the latter of whom are more usually known by

the name of Beefeaters, and who, in their picturesque and striking

uniform, make so effective a display on State occasions, such as the

Levées at St James’s Palace, and State balls and concerts at Buckingham

Palace. Whether the designation “Beefeater” originated from a supposed,

but non-existent French word “buffetier” or not is a matter of no

importance; but what is interesting is the fact that this body of men,

with the exception of the Pope’s Swiss bodyguard, are the only set of

attendants belonging to a European Court who retain a costume similar

to that worn by their predecessors over three centuries ago.

Passing under the Byward Tower the Inner Ward is reached, into which

entrance was gained from the river by Traitor’s Gate, the steps to that

famous portal running below St Thomas’s Tower. Formerly cross walls,

guarded with strong gates, defended the Inner Ward, but these have long

since disappeared, together with the grated walls which shut in the

passage across the Ward from Traitor’s Gate to the Bloody Tower.

As recently as the year 1867 this portion of the Inner Ward was covered

with storehouses, engine-rooms and the lodgings of the warders, and

most of these buildings, according to Lord de Ros, were in a state

of total dilapidation, “the result of many years of neglect on the part

of the former Board of Ordnance.” Since that time a great improvement

has been made here, as well as in other parts of the fortress: of these

improvements a list is given in the Appendix.

[Illustration: _Yeoman Porter of the Tower._]

Bounded by the Bloody and St Thomas’s Towers ran a narrow street called

Mint Street, from the adjoining building occupied by the offices of

the Mint, which consisted of a row of mean houses that hid and defaced

the fine old Ballium wall of the fortress. Regarding this Ballium

wall, Lord de Ros, in his account of the Tower, explains the word

“Ballium” as “a military term,” but wishing for some further knowledge

as to the meaning of the word, I referred to my learned friend Mr

W. Peregrine Propert of St David’s, who informed me that it was

probably derived from the French term “bailler,” meaning “to deliver

possession, to lease, to hold, keep, contain.” The Latin form Ballium

would accordingly mean something that is held, contained, or enclosed.

Castles in ancient times were usually enclosed by several circuits of

walls, fences, or ramparts. Sometimes there was a ditch or moat built

outside these defences, as was the case in the Tower of London. The

space between these walls was called the “Ballium.” On the site of the

prison of Newgate stood a Roman fortress which was no doubt surrounded

by ramparts, and the space so defended has retained its old appellation

Ballium in the present term Old Bailey. “It is quite natural,” adds Mr

Propert, “to suppose that if one wall disappeared the remaining wall

would be called the ballium popularly: in the same manner a wall in

the Tower of London might be called a Ballium, though not correctly

according to its etymology.”

The Ballium wall at its highest is some forty feet high, and dates

probably as far back as the Conquest; it is, therefore, one of the

most ancient parts of the Tower, and coeval with the White Tower. It

commences at the Main Gate of the outer rampart at the Bell Tower, and

forms the angle of the Queen’s or Governor’s House, whence it runs for

some fifty yards to the north-west until it joins the Beauchamp Tower:

this tower forms a bastion near the centre of the Ballium wall. To the

right the restored Tower of St Thomas overlaps the Traitor’s Gate. This

tower dates back to the reign of Henry VIII., and was entirely rebuilt

in 1866 by Salvin, only a portion of the interior retaining the walls

of the original building.

Among a crowd of dingy wine-shops, offices, storehouses, and buildings

which, according to good authority, were mostly “in a condition of ruin

and dilapidation,” stood the old Mint, of which some account must here

be given:

In the twenty-first annual account of the Deputy Master of the Mint for

the year 1890 is the following account of the Mint when it was still

within the Tower walls:—

“Among the old records of the Mint a discoloured parchment has been

discovered, which is described as ‘An exact survey of the ground plot

or plan of His Majesty’s Office of the Mint in the Tower of London.’

It bears the date February 26, 1700, and is of special interest as

having presumably been prepared by order of Sir Isaac Newton, who

was appointed Master of the Mint in 1699, having previously held the

office of Warden.... The Mint buildings were situated between the

rampart, which is bounded by the moat, and the inner ward or ballium

of the fortress, which they entirely surrounded, except on the river

frontage.... There are ample data as to the nature of the machinery and

appliances which filled the various workrooms at the time when the plan

was prepared. The more important machinery would be the rolling mills.

The rolling mills were drawn by horsepower, and the rolls were of

steel and of small dimensions. The coining presses were screw presses,

and must have been the same as were introduced by Blondeau in 1661,

under the direction of Sir W. Parkhurst and Sir Anthony St Ledger,

Wardens of the Mint, at a cost of £1400. Blondeau, who greatly improved

the system of coining, did not, however, invent the screw press, as

Cellini described it accurately in 1568.”

[Illustration: _The Wakefield and Bloody Towers._]

In 1698 Sir Isaac Newton writes from the “Mint Office, October 22nd,”

as follows:—“Sir, Pray let Mr James Roettier have the use of the

great Crown Press in the Long Press Room for coyning of the Medalls,

and let some person whom you can confide in, attend to see that Mr

Roettier make no other use of the said press room than for coyning of

medalls.—To Mr John Braint, Provost of the Moniers.”

Sir Isaac was evidently suspicious of the uses that Roettier might

make of the Crown press, and not overconfident of the honesty of the

old Dutch medallist. We shall have more to say regarding Roettier when

describing the Tower under the Stuart king’s Restoration.

It is uncertain if Sir Isaac Newton occupied the house of the Master

of the Mint in the Tower, although it is recorded in the Conduit MSS.

that Halley once dined with Sir Isaac at the Mint. At the end of the

seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, Newton had a

house in Jermyn Street, St James’s. The lodgings in the Tower of the

Master of the Mint were immediately to the north of the Byward Tower,

whilst those of the Warden were to the left of the Brass Mount, on the

north of the Jewel or Martin Tower.

The debasement of the coin of the realm, especially during the reigns

of the Tudor Sovereigns, caused great loss to the State, the matter

becoming so serious that Latimer denounced this criminal practice from

St Paul’s Cross, Sir John Yorke being then Master of the Tower Mint.

In 1550–51 it is recorded that there was “great loss, 4000 weight of

silver, by treason of Englishmen, which he (Yorke) bought for provision

for the minters. Also Judd, 1500; also Gresham, 500; so that the whole

came to 4000 pound.” There is a letter to the Treasurer, dated 22nd

August 1550, ordering him “to waie and cause to be molten downe into

wedges all such crosses, images, and church and chapelle plate of Gould

as remains in the Towere.” This letter was accompanied by a warrant

signed by Henry VIII. for “VIJM pounds appointed to be delivered to

Sir John Yorke for such purposes as his Lordship knoweth.” This act of

spoliation of all the Church treasure in the Tower by the rapacious

Henry, accounts for none of the plate in the Chapel of St Peter’s

dating further back than the reign of Charles I.

The famous Traitor’s Gate is perhaps the most historic plot of ground

in England, for here some of the noblest of our race have played the

last scene but one of their lives. More tragic pathos attaches to this

black water-gate than to the Bridge of Sighs in Venice; it is more

deeply dyed with gloom than the glacis of Avignon, the dungeons of St

Angelo, or the Austrian Spilberg. But a few steps had to be traversed

by the prisoners, when landed at these steps, before they entered the

Bloody Tower on the opposite side of the Ward, not to pass thence until

the day of their execution. The Traitor’s Gate was the principal of

the Barbicans or water-gates of the fortress; it commanded the passage

between the Thames and the moat. The stone arch which spans Traitor’s

Gate springs from two octagonal piers, and is 61 feet across. On the

old steps, that can still be traced below the modern stone stairs by

which they are overlaid, many an illustrious victim landed from the

barge, in which the prisoners of State were generally taken to and from

their trial at Westminster.

Within one of the circular turrets over the Gate, on the south-east,

are the remains of an oratory, the piscina being still visible in

the wall. It was before this tower, on the night of St George’s Day

1240, that the gateway with the adjacent wall of St Thomas’s Tower

suddenly fell to the ground. In the following year, on the same

anniversary, the newly-built tower and gate again fell prone. That

such a catastrophe should occur twice on the night of the 23rd of April

was attributed by the Londoners to supernatural causes; and rumour

spread that on that very night (Mathew Paris is the authority) the

spectre of an Archbishop, crozier in hand, had appeared to one of the

Tower priests whilst standing near St Thomas’s Tower. After gazing

sternly at the priest and on the walls of the tower then rebuilding,

the spectre struck the stones with his crozier, exclaiming, “Why build

ye these?” and down fell the newly-erected tower and wall. The spectre

was supposed to be St Thomas of Canterbury, from whom the tower took

its name, but after the building had arisen for the third time, the

restorer has been the only person who has meddled with them.

[Illustration: North, or inside, view of TRAITOR’S GATE.

_being the principal entrance of the Tower of London, from the

River, and through which state prisoners of rank and dignity were

formerly conveyed to the Tower._]

A passage connected this tower with the Wakefield Tower, on the right

of the Bloody Tower, and was restored by Salvin, to enable the Keeper

of the Regalia, who has his quarters in St Thomas’s Tower, to pass into

the Wakefield Tower, where the jewels are kept, without leaving the

building.

The Wakefield Tower and its companion, the Bloody Tower, form one block

of buildings. According to recent authorities this tower is principally

the work of the reigns of Stephen and of Henry III. Formerly it was

called the Record or Hall Tower, and for many centuries contained the

documents relating to the fortress, now kept in the Record Office in

Chancery Lane. Its second name of Hall Tower was probably given to

it because of its proximity to the great hall of the Palace, which

was destroyed by Cromwell, where the courts of justice met in the

Middle Ages. Its present name is no doubt derived from the prisoners

who were taken at the battle of Wakefield in December 1460, when the

Lancastrians, led by Warwick, defeated the Yorkists. The unhappy

Yorkists were interned in a vaulted chamber in the basement of the

tower; and here also another civil war, that of 1745, brought a shoal

of Scottish prisoners into this dismal dungeon when the mortality

amongst them was terrible. Salvin restored the tower, without and

within, in 1867. Some frescoes on the walls of the rooms on the first

floor could still be traced up to that time, but nothing of these most

interesting relics of early English art have been left by the restorers.

The dungeon in the basement, where the Yorkist and Jacobite soldiers

were placed at an interval of nearly three centuries, is octagonal

in form, 23 feet in width, by 10 feet high. Its walls are 13 feet in

thickness, the present beautiful vaulted stone roof being a copy of the

old one. The Government of George II. behaved to the poor Highlanders

brought here after Culloden, much as did the Indian perpetrators of the

Black Hole of Calcutta tragedy, for between sixty and seventy prisoners

were crammed into this single chamber. It is little wonder that half

of them speedily died; the survivors were transported as slaves to the

West Indies. The Regalia is kept in the upper chamber of this tower and

is probably the greatest attraction to the majority of the visitors to

the Tower of London, for gewgaws always attract a crowd.[3]

Of the half-dozen crowns, with the sceptres and orbs, and other

State ornaments kept in this chamber, one or two articles only, date

back earlier than the days of Charles II. The oldest of these is a

silver-gilt “anointing spoon” which belonged to the Ampulla or Golden

Eagle, and was used to anoint the sovereign with the holy oil at his or

her coronation; a salt-cellar which is said to have belonged to Queen

Elizabeth, and which is certainly a handsome specimen of chased silver

of the Renaissance period. The coronation spoon is of pure gold, and

has four pearls placed in the broadest part of the handle, on which

also are remains of some enamelling. An arabesque is engraved on

the bowl; a ridge runs down the centre forming two depressions in the

metal, and into these hollows the Archbishop dipped his finger before

anointing the sovereign. The Ampulla, the vessel which contained the

oil, is also fashioned in gold, in the shape of an eagle, the head,

which served as a lid, being loose. The Imperial crown, a terrible

thing in form, although covered with handsome jewels, was entirely

reconstructed for George IV. at his coronation, and is worthy of that

monarch’s taste.

[Illustration: _The Jewel House_]

[Illustration: _Doorway of the Jewel House_]

In the reign of Henry VIII. the Keeper of these jewels was for a time

Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, who received fifty pounds a year for

the office, besides many perquisites connected with the charge. In

1623, Charles I., starting with the Duke of Buckingham on his quixotic

journey to Spain, is said to have carried with him jewels belonging to

the Crown to the value of sixty thousand pounds.

During the Commonwealth the Crown was broken up and the Crown jewels

dispersed. At the Restoration, Sir Gilbert Talbot was the Keeper of

the Jewels, and it was then, for the first time, that the public were

allowed to see the Regalia. Whilst Talbot was Keeper and Edwards

sub-Keeper, Blood’s almost successful attempt to carry off the Crown

occurred. Far more interesting than the Regalia is the chamber in which

it is placed. It is octagonal in shape, 30 feet in diameter, with bays

opened into the walls. The beautiful carved ceiling is a modern copy

of the original. In the bay on the north-eastern side are two deep

recesses, that under an archway being the original entrance into the

chamber and connecting it with the palace; it is now walled up. The

recess to the south-east was formerly an oratory, and is mentioned in

the Tower records in the year 1238.

Tradition points to this room as being the scene of the murder of

Henry VI. by Richard III., who is supposed to have entered through

the passage from the Palace, and finding Henry praying in the oratory

stabbed him to death, “punching his anointed body full of deadly

holes,” as Shakespeare puts it in “Henry VI.”

Before describing the Inner Ward, which is entered after passing under

the Bloody Tower, of which the black portcullis still shows its jagged

teeth, one would do well to turn and look back from under the curiously

groined roof of the old gateway, with lions’ heads carved in the

spandrels, towards Traitor’s Gate. This is perhaps the most suggestive

view of any within the Tower, the least changed, and full of historical

reminiscences. Through this archway have passed all the State prisoners

that the old fortress has drawn into its grim maw—prelates, queens, and

princes, statesmen, judges, courtiers, and soldiers of all degrees—the

patriot willing to lay down his life for the “old cause,” as Algernon

Sidney called his policy—and the favourite of some fickle royal master,

thrown aside and allowed to perish by a Henry, an Elizabeth, or a

Charles. For five centuries this old Tower has seen pass beneath its

black walls many who have helped to make the history of our race; this

pathway has been their _Via Crucis_.

A very old tradition, dating certainly as far back as the reign of

Elizabeth, gives the epithet of “bloody” to this tower. It has always

been known as the place where the sons of Edward IV. were murdered by

their uncle Richard in 1483. Although there is no historical evidence

to prove that this was the scene of that event, local tradition in a

place like the Tower is not a factor to be despised, for the story of

the crime and its _locale_ cannot have been handed down at an interval

of less than a hundred years from the time of the occurrence. Until the

reign of Elizabeth the Bloody Tower was called the Garden Tower, from

a garden which lay on its western side, belonging to the Constable’s

House or Lodging, to give its old style, the building now known as the

King’s or Governor’s House; this garden has long ceased to exist.

[Illustration: _The Bloody Tower._

_looking towards Traitor’s Gate._]

The Bloody Tower is a building of three storeys, with an elevation

of 47 feet. Worthy of notice is the portcullis which, like that of

the Byward Tower, is still in working order: these two are said to

be the only remaining portcullises in England still capable of being

used. Mrs Hutchinson, the wife of the Parliamentary Colonel, refers to

this portcullis. She shared her husband’s imprisonment here in 1663,

“in a room,” she writes, “where it was said the two young princes,

Edward V. and his brother, were murdered; the room that led to it was

a great dark room with no window, where the portcullis to one of the

inner gates was drawn up and let down.” Among other prisoners who have

lingered in the Bloody Tower were Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, Jane

Grey’s father-in-law, Archbishop Cranmer, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir

Thomas Overbury, who was slowly poisoned. It was from the window over

the gateway on the north side that Archbishop Laud, himself a prisoner,

gave Strafford his supreme blessing as the great Earl was led out to

die; and in this tower the brutal Judge Jeffreys died of delirium

caused by drink and despair. The only prisoner here now is a small bird

whose cage hangs from out a window of this gloomy gaol.

Of all the illustrious prisoners who have been immured here Sir Walter

Raleigh is the most interesting. The steps which lead to the first

floor of the prison tower open on an arched door, through which he

must often have passed; they are as old as the Tower itself, which

dates back to Richard III. or Richard II. In the Elizabethan survey

of the Tower a walled garden is shown on the plan, facing the north.

This was the garden which helped to soften the long imprisonment

passed by Sir Walter, and here he whiled away many of the weary hours

of his long captivity tending his flowers, or distilling essences in

a little garden house which he had built himself. These occupations

and the composition of his huge fragment, the famous “History of the

World,” which he wrote in the Tower, must have been Raleigh’s greatest

consolations during the fourteen long years he passed in the fortress.

Raleigh also had the company of his family during one period of his

imprisonment, and he was also allowed to have some of the natives he

had brought back from Guiana to attend upon him. As the years of his

imprisonment increased so did his troubles, and he suffered cruelly

from rheumatism and palsy whilst in the Bloody Tower, and in 1606

it was found necessary, if his life was to be preserved, to change

his prison. For Raleigh’s memory, among other reasons, the interior

of the Bloody Tower is well worth visiting, although the rooms have

been modernised. They are now occupied by one of the warders and his

family. One chamber is pointed out as that in which the little York

princes were smothered. This room has been divided into two, but there

is nothing to show that the walls and the ceiling are not the same as

those which were there when the murderers entered, having presumably

passed through a window at the end of a passage which opens out on to

the terraced wall overlooking the river.

Within the Inner Ward, by the side of the Wakefield Tower, stood, until

the summer of 1899, an ugly building called the Main Guard, and it is

in front of this building that the ceremony of receiving the Tower

keys takes place nightly. Every evening just before midnight the Chief

Warder and the Yeoman Porter meet together and proceed to the main

guard-room. The Yeoman Porter carries in his hand his bunch of great

keys, and on arriving at the guard-room he asks for “The escort of the

keys.” This escort consists of a Beefeater (a sergeant) and six private

soldiers. The sergeant carries a lantern, and the whole party then

proceeds to the outer gate, where the soldiers assist the Yeoman Porter

to close it. The latter then takes his keys and locks the gate, after

which the procession is reformed for the return. As the party passes

the sentinels on its way back, the latter challenges it with, “Who goes

there?” The Yeoman Porter makes answer “The keys!” To this the sentry

calls out “Advance King Edward’s Keys!” and the escort proceeds

onward to the Main Guard. When this is reached the same ceremony is

gone through, at the conclusion of which the officer of the guard and

the escort salute the keys by presenting arms, after which the Yeoman

Porter cries “God preserve King Edward!” The keys are then carried by

the same guardian to the King’s House, or, as it is sometimes called,

the Governor’s House, and placed for the night in the Constable’s

office. Probably few know that, with the exception of the Sovereign and

the Constable of the Tower, the password of the fortress is known only

to the Lord Mayor of London, the word being sent to the Mansion House,

quarterly, signed by the monarch. This is a survival of an ancient

custom.

[Illustration: _Groining in Ceiling of the Bloody Tower._]

In early days a building, with towers attached, stood between the

Main Guard and the White Tower, which is called in the old plans of

the fortress “Cold or Cole Harbour.” When in 1899 the Main Guard was

pulled down the old wall of Cold Harbour was laid bare, and at the same

time a well with a stone lining to it, and a subterranean passage were

discovered. The subterranean passage ran to the east of the Wakefield

Tower and opened out towards the river front at the eastern side of St

Thomas’s Tower, at a depth of five feet below the actual surface of the

ground; it was six feet high, and so narrow that only one person could

pass along it.

In Gascoyne’s plan of the Tower, Cold Harbour is shown with two tall

circular towers, with a gateway between them, and stands at the

south-western side of the White Tower. But as far back as the reign of

James II. this building had disappeared. The origin of the name “Cold

Harbour or Cole Harbour” has been a puzzle to antiquarians. The name is

found in many localities throughout the south of England, and is always

found in places near the Roman Road, a circumstance which has given

the possible derivation of the name from _Collis Arboris_ or _Colles

Aborum_. And the site of Cold Harbour in the Tower might, with every

probability, have been a wooded knoll or hillock by the side of the

river when the Romans ruled in Britain. That Cold Harbour, or rather

its two towers, were of some height is shown by the complaint made in

1572 against the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Owen Hopton, for allowing

his prisoners to meet and walk on the “leads of Cole Harbour.” About

the same time Lord Southampton, Shakespeare’s friend, when a prisoner

in the Tower, was once seen “leaping upon the tower, his wife being on

the opposite side of the ditch,” or the moat as we should call it.

To the left, and facing the Main Guard, lies the Tower Green, known

also as the Parade. It has buildings upon its three sides. On the

southern side the King’s House,[4] formerly called the Lieutenant’s

Lodging, with its old gables, is a conspicuous feature. This building

is carried on to the western side of the Green by a row of houses whose

fronts have been modernised out of all semblance to their respectable

antiquity; the northern end of the Green is closed by the walls of

the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Homely as is the appearance of the

King’s House, it is here that, should the reigning monarch of England

ever return to lodge in the fortress, he or she would dwell, for it

is the largest of the dwelling-houses within the Tower since the old

Palace was pulled down. To those who have had the privilege of being

taken over this house by its present occupier, General George Milman,

the memory of its quaint old rooms, some panelled with wainscotting,

and all made interesting by a collection of prints, and views, and

portraits of places and people connected with the history of the

fortress, will be a lasting and a pleasant one. No worthier guardian

has held the honoured post of Lieutenant of the Tower, or taken a

deeper interest in the venerable monument over which his Sovereign

placed him, than the present occupant of the post.

The Lieutenant of the Tower ranks next to the Constable of the

fortress. In the reign of Richard II. the Lieutenant received twenty

pounds a year, and was entitled to the following perquisites. From

every prisoner committed to the Tower having property of a hundred

marks a year he received, “for the sute of his yrons” forty shillings,

and from poorer or richer prisoners in proportion. From every galley

coming up the river he received a “roundlett of wine” and of “daynties

a certain quantity.” In the time of Elizabeth the Lieutenant received

two hundred marks a year; in the eighteenth century this sum was

increased to seven hundred pounds a year, besides valuable perquisites.

The office of Constable of the Tower ranks high amongst military

honours. Its roll of names include, since the death of the Iron Duke

in 1852, those of Lord Combermere, Sir John Burgoyne, Sir Fenwick

Williams, Lord Napier of Magdala, and Sir Daniel Lysons.

With its many gables, the old flagged court before it, bordered by

sycamores, the King’s House forms a pleasing contrast to the blackened

walls and towers which are round about it. The building looks a place

of ancient peace, and seems rather to be a portion of some venerable

college than of a mediæval fortress. The Green, formerly divided into

three portions, of which one was a garden, the second a parade ground,

and the third (that nearest to St Peter’s Chapel) a burying-ground, is

now a single space in which seats are placed for the weary sightseer.

It is a pleasant place wherein to pass a few moments day-dreaming

on the scene around, and its strange contrast between the past and

the present. On the ground floor of the King’s House is kept that

interesting relic of the Tower and its story, the processional axe.

This is the famous weapon which was carried to and from State trials

by the Gentleman Warder. The axe’s head is peculiar in form, 1 foot 8

inches high by 10 inches wide, and is fastened into a wooden handle 5

feet 4 inches long. The handle is ornamented by four rows of burnished

brass nails running perpendicularly down the sides, giving the weapon

a strong resemblance to the decorated boat-hooks used in Venice for

holding the gondolas at the landing-stages.

In the photograph which, by the kindness of General Milman, I was

permitted to have taken of the axe, the background is formed by the

masonry of the Bloody Tower, which has the appearance of a grisly

pile of human skulls, a not inappropriate circumstance. Although the

processional axe was only used as an emblem of law and justice, it is

closely connected with many a Tower tragedy. It is not known when this

axe was first used in those solemn processions when it preceded the

prisoner to and from trial, nor is its age certain. It was last used

at the State trials of the Jacobite lords in the years 1746 and 1747.

It is now kept in the study of the Lieutenant of the Tower, whence it

is only removed on such State occasions as the installation of a new

Constable.

On the first floor of the King’s House, overlooking the Thames, is the

Council Room in which Guy Fawkes was examined before Cecil and the

Council of State. It was on this occasion that Cecil wrote to James

I. that Guy Fawkes “was no more dismayed than if he were taken for a

poor robbery in the highway.” Fawkes was not, as is sometimes stated,

tortured in this room, for torture was only applied in the dungeons

below the White Tower, which fact should disprove the legend that the

cries of the tortured conspirator are heard on stormy nights proceeding

from the Council Chamber. But there is another legend connected with

this part of the Tower, to the effect that the shadow of an axe is

sometimes seen spreading its form on Tower Green, and appearing on

the walls of the White Tower. Indeed, a likelier or a more proper

place for ghostly visitations of all kinds than the Tower can hardly

be found anywhere in the world, if it be true that ghosts “do walk.”

For this reason it is disappointing that there are so few legends of

apparitions to chronicle, and of these few the following have the

best authentication. In _Notes and Queries_ for September 1860, some

letters appeared relating to Tower ghosts, and amongst them Mr E. Le

Swifte (the same individual, I believe, who so courageously saved the

Regalia during the great fire in the Tower in 1841, when the Armoury

was destroyed) writes an account of a ghostly visitant which appeared

to his wife and himself in the Martin Tower, where the Regalia, of

which he had charge, were then placed. Swifte was appointed to the

post of Keeper of the Crown Jewels in 1814, which he held until 1852,

living with his family in the Martin Tower. One evening in the month of

October 1817, whilst at supper, his little son and his wife’s sister

were startled at seeing an apparition, “like a glass tube” of the

thickness of Mrs Swifte’s arm, which hovered between the ceiling and

the supper table. It seemed to contain, adds Swifte, “a clear fluid.”

This spectral shape appeared for a few moments, causing the family the

greatest alarm. Shortly afterwards, one of the sentinels outside the

Martin Tower saw a “huge bear issuing from underneath the door of the

Tower.” The man fell down in a swoon and was taken to the guard-house

room. The poor fellow actually died of the fright.

[Illustration: _The Council Chamber in the Governor’s House._]

Above the chimney-piece of the Council Chamber is a life-size coloured

alto-relievo head of James the First; between this and the window, on

the same wall, is a highly ornate stone tablet in the style of an altar

tomb of the period, adorned with a row of heraldic shields bearing the

coat-of-arms of the members of the Council who examined Guy Fawkes,

amongst whom are those of Sir Edward Coke, the Attorney-General, and

of Sir William Wade or Waad, the Lieutenant of the Tower, by whom the

tablet was erected in honour of King James. Wade was the Lieutenant who

was so cordially disliked by Sir Walter Raleigh, who called him “that

beast Waad.” Below the shields is a fulsome inscription in English,

Latin, and Hebrew, describing the Gunpowder Plot and its discovery.

Adjoining the Council Chamber is the room from which Lady Nithsdale

succeeded in helping her husband to escape from the Tower, where he

had been in prison for the part he had taken in the rebellion of 1715.

The escape, which is described in the chapter dealing with the Tower

under the Georges, was effected on the day before that on which Lord

Nithsdale was to be executed. The unfortunate Duke of Monmouth was a

prisoner in this building in 1685, between his capture after the Battle

of Sedgemoor and his death on Tower Hill. Here also, during the days

when the Stuarts reigned, and even earlier, it was customary to send to

the care of the Lieutenant those prisoners of State whose position and

importance made it desirable that they should be under the eye of the

chief officer in the fortress, who was made personally responsible for

their safe keeping. To this class of prisoner belonged Lady Margaret

Douglas, Countess of Lennox, and mother of Henry Darnley. In an upper

chamber of the King’s House is an inscription on a stone let into the

wall above the fireplace, on which it is written that the Countess

was “Commyedede prysner to this Lodgynge for the marege of her sonne,

my Lord Henry Darnle and the Queene of Scotlande,” a list of servants

“that doe wayte upon her noble grace in thys place” is also given upon

the stone. This unlucky lady was a prisoner in 1565 for no fault, save

that she was the mother of Queen Mary of Scotland’s husband. After

passing many years in captivity, her cousin Elizabeth allowed her,

after her release from the Tower, to die in poverty. Lady Lennox is

commemorated by a stately monument in Henry the Seventh’s chapel in

Westminster Abbey, for Elizabeth, with that strange inconsistency for

which she was remarkable, after imprisoning the poor lady, and allowing

her to die in misery after her release, erected a costly tomb to her

memory. It was, indeed, a case of being asked for bread and according a

stone.

At the south-western corner of the King’s House is the Bell Tower,

a passage leading into it from the first floor of that building. A

bell which formerly hung in a wooden turret on this tower gave it

its name—the turret still remains, but the bell is kept in the upper

storey. In the Tower regulations of 1607 it is ordered that: “When the

Tower bell doth ring at nights for the shutting in of the gates, all

the prisoners, with their servants, are to withdraw themselves into

their chambers, and not to goe forth that night.” This bell was also

the alarm bell of the fortress.

[Illustration: _Prison in the Governor’s House._]

The Bell Tower, which dates from the time of Richard I. or Henry III.,

is an irregular octagon, being 60 feet in height and 30 in diameter.

The lower portion is of solid masonry, the walls varying from 9 to 13

feet in thickness. There are only two floors or storeys in the Tower,

the lower with a fine vaulted ceiling. The room in the upper storey is

a circular chamber, 18 feet across, with walls 8 feet in thickness.

This prison is reached by a narrow staircase from the King’s House, and

is lighted by four windows. Bishop Fisher was imprisoned in the upper

chamber in the reign of Henry VIII., Sir Thomas More being confined

in the one below. Both were harshly treated, and the poor old bishop

suffered terribly from the cold. In the lower chamber, where More

passed many solitary hours, even debarred from the consolation of his

books, there now stands a large model of the Tower. Near the door of

the upper prison a much defaced inscription can be seen on the wall,

cut by the Bishop of Ross, who was a prisoner here in the time of

Elizabeth. Felton, the murderer of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham,

is also believed to have been a prisoner in the Bell Tower.

Between the King’s House and the Beauchamp Tower, and facing Tower

Green, is a row of modernised houses occupied by the Yeomen of the

Guard, the Yeoman Jailor, and other officials connected with the

fortress. All these houses have been refaced, and one regrets the bad

taste which, in former years, allowed every appearance of age to be

ruthlessly swept away from these buildings; and this is a regret that

is ever present when visiting the Tower. The most glaring instance is

the Beauchamp Tower, which, next to the White Tower, would have been

the most interesting of the many interesting buildings here, had it not

undergone what architects call “a thorough restoration” half-a-century

ago. But the interior walls bear the record of many notable captives

who, while waiting their fate, carved their name, their escutcheon,

or some pious prayer upon the stones. Nearly all the most important

prisoners of State during the reigns of the Tudors were imprisoned

here, as the walls of the large prison room on the first floor still

show. They are literally covered with inscriptions and devices. Some of

these, however, have been brought from other places in the fortress,

and therefore do not properly belong to the Beauchamp Tower, which

is to be regretted, since they lose their interest by being removed

from their original sites. Outwardly the Beauchamp Tower has now as

modern an appearance as either the Norman or Winchester Towers at

Windsor—spick, span, and spruce looking, more like a modern imitation

of some mediæval tower than the actuality; the glamour of the old walls

has been entirely destroyed.

For many years the prison room on the first floor of the Beauchamp

Tower was the mess room for the officers of the garrison, and General

Milman remembers dining there frequently when on duty at the Tower, the

walls and inscriptions being covered by cupboards and furniture.

This tower takes its name from Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick,

who was confined here in 1397. It was also known by the name of the

Cobham Tower, from Lord Cobham and his sons having been imprisoned

in it in Queen Mary’s reign for the part they had taken in Wyatt’s

rebellion. The tower forms a semicircle and has three floors, the well

staircase by which it is entered from the Green communicating with

each floor and rising to the roof, which is battlemented. The large

window facing the Green is modern, dating from the “restoration” of

the building in 1854 by Salvin, but the cross window is of the time

of Edward III., and is contemporary with the original structure.

The principal prison chamber was the one on the second floor, and

this contains the most noteworthy inscriptions. Close to the entrance

door the name “Marmaduke Neville” is cut in the wall: this Neville is

believed to have been imprisoned here in the reign of Elizabeth for

having plotted for Queen Mary of Scotland. On the right of Neville’s

signature appears the name of “Peverel,” with an elaborate device of a

crucifix with a bleeding heart in the centre, and the Peverel shield.

Nothing is known regarding this Peverel, but one sees the name with

interest, associated as it is with Sir Walter Scott’s romance. Sir

Walter made a careful study of this inscription, and the picturesque

name doubtless attracted him and led to its forming part of the title

of one of his immortal novels. Within the prison room on the ground

floor, the first name of historical importance to arrest attention is

that of Robert Dudley, carved on the left-hand side of the entrance.

This sign manual of Elizabeth’s favourite, the unscrupulous Earl of

Leicester, was probably cut by him when he was in this tower in 1554.

Four of his brothers were also imprisoned with him, all of whom were

released on Mary’s accession to the throne. In the prison chamber

on the floor above there is another record of Robert Dudley and his

brothers. This is an elaborately carved “rebus,” representing an oak

tree for Robert (Robur), on which are acorns, with the initials R. D.

carved beneath. Above the fireplace, which is, I fear, a restoration,

appears an inscription of great interest, a pious Latin prayer with the

illustrious name of Arundell cut in large letters, and dated June 22nd,

1587. This was the handiwork of the unfortunate Philip Howard, Earl

of Arundel, the son of that Duke of Norfolk who was beheaded in 1573

for his wish to marry the Queen of Scots. The fate of Philip Howard’s

father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, who were all beheaded,

weighed, not unnaturally, upon their descendant, and, being a zealous

Roman Catholic, his position was one of great danger after the death

of Tudor Mary. On Elizabeth’s accession Arundel made an ineffectual

attempt to seek safety abroad, but was captured and placed in prison,

where he remained until his death in 1595. Another inscription cut by

him in this tower appears above some steps leading to the third storey:

it is in Latin, and rendered into English, runs: “It is a reproach to

be bound in the cause of sin; but to sustain the bonds of prison for

the sake of Christ is the greatest of glory. Arundell, 26th May 1587.”

[Illustration: _The Beauchamp Tower._]

The late Duke of Norfolk printed, from the original MSS. kept at

Arundel Castle, in 1857, a record entitled “The Lives of Philip Howard,

Earl of Arundel, and of Anne Dacres his wife.” At the close of the

book we read that “Whilst he (Arundel) was prisoner he was not only an

example, but a singular comfort to all Catholicks. No one ever heard

him complain either of the loss of his goods, or of the incommodities

of the prison, or the being bereaved of his liberty; and such as he

heard complain or understood to be aggrieved, he endeavoured by his

words and courteous usage to comfort, strengthen, and confirm. His

delight was in nothing but in God, and the contemplation of heavenly

things; much of the money which the Queen did allow him for his

maintenance (for to every prisoner in the Tower something is assigned,

more or less according to each man’s degree) he gave to the poor,

contenting himself with a spare and slender diet.” Lord Arundel rests

in that most beautiful of England’s mausoleums, the chapel at Arundel.

In this chamber are more memorials of the family of Dudley—one an

elaborate carving commemorating the magnificent Leicester and his four

brothers, John, Ambrose, Guildford, and Henry. Within a frame formed

by a garland of roses, geraniums, honeysuckles, and oak sprigs, are a

bear and a lion supporting a ragged staff, the Dudley crest, with these

lines beneath—

“You that these beasts do wel behold and se,

May deme with ease therefore here made they be,

With borders eke wherein four brothers names who list to serche the

ground.”

One line is missing, but the Rev. R. Dick, in his interesting work on

the Beauchamp Tower, thus completes the verse with the words, “these

may be found.”

[Illustration: _Prison in the Beauchamp Tower._]

Of these four Dudley brothers, John was the eldest of the Duke of

Northumberland’s sons, and became Earl of Warwick. It was he who helped

his father in his attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne, and

was imprisoned here until his death in 1554 in consequence. He was

succeeded in the earldom of Warwick by his brother Ambrose, who is

represented by the acorn in the garland on the wall; the rose stands

for Robert, the geranium for Guildford, and the honeysuckle for Henry.

All these suppositions are from Mr Dick’s work on the inscriptions, and

whether correct or not, they are at any rate ingenious, and explain the

lines.

On the left of the second recess in this room is written in the

stone “I.W.S. 1571. Die Aprilis. Wise men ought circumspectly to

see what they do—to examine before they speake—to prove before they

take in hand—to beware whose company they use, and above all things,

to whom they truste—Charles Bailly.” Bailly was a young Fleming who

had been involved in one of the many plots to free Mary Stuart from

her captivity; to judge from the above inscription he had reason to

regret the company he had kept, and those in whom he had trusted. Near

Bailly’s inscription, but outside the recess, is the name of John

Store, Doctor. Store was one of the few of those who suffered death

after imprisonment in the Tower, whose fate was merited. He was a

bigoted Roman Catholic priest, whose intolerance and severity towards

the Reformers procured him the office of Chancellor to the University

of Oxford under Mary Tudor. He is said to have out-Bonnered Bonner

in his persecutions of those of the Reformed faith who fell into his

hands. When Elizabeth came to the throne Store fled to the Netherlands.

But he was brought back, imprisoned in the Beauchamp Tower in 1571, and

ended his career on the gallows at Tyburn.

There are several inscriptions in this chamber relating to the family

of Pole, or, as the name is spelt on the walls, Poole. One of these

is in the third recess in a loophole—E. Poole. This is Edmund Pole, a

great-grandson of the murdered Duke of Clarence; he and his brother

Arthur were here in 1562, being both involved in one of the real or

imaginary plots against Elizabeth. Edmund Pole has engraved here that

most consolatory of the Psalms, the cxxvi.—“Die semini in lachrimis in

exilititiane meter.” In another recess is “A. Pole, 1564. I.H.S. To

serve God. To endure penance. To obey fate is to reign.” Both brothers

ended their sad lives in this prison. One name carved in this chamber

has a deeper pathos than any inscription could convey; it is that of

“Jane,” and it appears in two places in the Beauchamp Tower. One would

like to think it inscribed by that peerless Jane Grey herself, but,

as she was not imprisoned here, it was probably the handiwork of her

husband, Guildford Dudley, or some adherent to her cause and sharer in

her misfortune.

The name of Thomas Fitzgerald in one of the recesses records that it

was here that the ninth Earl of Kildare with five of his uncles was

imprisoned, having been inveigled from Ireland by Henry VIII. They were

executed at Tyburn in 1538 for being concerned in a series of wild

deeds in Ireland, amongst which the murder of the Archbishop of Armagh

was the chief. Here, too, is the name of Thomas Cobham, with the date

1555, he being one of three brothers of that name who were placed in

the Beauchamp for taking part in Sir Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion.

The earliest date in this tower is 1462, which is cut by the side of

the name of Thomas Talbot. In all there are ninety-one names on the

walls, of which I have noted the most important only.

To the north, and attached to the Beauchamp Tower, is the Chaplain’s

house, with an uninteresting modernised front facing the Green, and

but a few paces distant is a small paved plot of ground railed in

by order of Queen Victoria. This little plot marks the site of the

scaffold, and, above all things, it is sanctified by the memory of

Lady Jane Grey. The first victim to suffer death on this spot was

Anne Boleyn in 1538, and the last, Essex, the favourite of Elizabeth,

in 1601. Here, too, in 1541, the venerable Countess of Salisbury

was literally butchered; in the following year Catherine Howard was

beheaded with her companion in misfortune, if not in guilt, Lady

Rochford. Lord Hastings, Richard III.’s victim, was, I imagine,

beheaded immediately beneath the walls of the White Tower, for the

description of his sudden end shows that the site of Jane Grey’s

scaffold was too distant for Richard Crookback to have glutted his eyes

with Hastings’s death.

[Illustration: _Prison Chamber in the Beauchamp Tower._]

In former times the ground around the site of the scaffold on the

Green was a place of burial, being the churchyard of the Chapel which

faces it. “With the exception of the Abbey Church of St Peter’s at

Westminster,” writes Mr Doyne Bell in his interesting monograph on the

Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower (a most appropriate title

for a building of such tragic memories), “there is no ecclesiastical

edifice in the United Kingdom in which (so far as it has been used as

a place of sepulture) is contained so much historical interest as the

Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. Within its walls

have been received the mortal remains of many, whose names, though not

recorded on the stones of the pavement, must yet ever live in the pages

of English history.” Macaulay in a well-known passage has called this

chapel “the saddest spot on earth,” and in a less well-known passage

has expressed his disgust at the vandalism which had “transformed this

interesting little church into the likeness of a meeting-house in a

manufacturing town.” Since the historian expressed this well-merited

indignation at the treatment accorded to St Peter’s Chapel, the fabric

has undergone a much needed restoration, happily not in the bad sense

of that term, since it has been restored as much as possible to its

condition in the middle of the sixteenth century. This restoration has

been mercifully undertaken and skilfully executed, externally as well

as internally, in every detail.

As far back as the reign of John, or even that of Henry I., a church

stood on the site of St Peter’s Chapel. In the reign of Henry III.,

a Royal warrant, of the year 1241, was issued by that monarch at

Windsor, directing that the Royal pew in St Peter’s should be repaired

for the use of the King and Queen, and instructions were given for

the refurbishing of a tabernacle with carved figures of St Peter, St

Michael, and St Katherine. Of this church only a few vestiges remain in

the crypt of the present chapel, which was built by Edward III. In a

warrant dated from Fotheringay in July 1305–6, that King orders Ralph

de Sandwich, Constable of the Tower, “to be reimbursed for various

expenses incurred by him in the construction of our new chapel within

the Tower.”

St Peter’s consists of a nave and a single aisle on its northern side;

in length it is 66 feet, in width 54, and in height 25.

As Mr Doyne Bell points out, the peculiar dedication of the church to

St Peter in Chains shows that it has been used since its foundation as

a church more for the use of the prisoners in the fortress than for the

sovereigns and their courts, whose place of devotion was the chapel of

St John in the White Tower. With the exception of the church in Rome

dedicated to St Peter ad Vincula, there is no other church besides

this one in the Tower, so named. To those who see this building for

the first time its general aspect must cause disappointment, so small

and almost mean does it appear, and like a hundred similar churches

scattered all over the country. But St Peter’s has undergone endless

changes and alterations, and comparatively little is left of the

building of Edward III. The exterior of the building belongs to the

Tudor period. Before the last restoration, in 1867, Lord De Ros

wrote, “It is inconceivable what pains have been taken in comparatively

modern times to disfigure this interesting chapel.” But this reproach

cannot be applied to the latest restoration, which was done with

extreme care and good taste.

[Illustration: _Interior of Sᵗ. Peter’s Chapel._]

The larger portion of the present building dates from the reign of

Henry VIII., when many alterations were made, the windows, with the

exception of the one over the west door, the arches in the interior,

and the timbered roof, being then placed as we see them now.

The list of interments in this chapel commences with the reign of Henry

VIII. This list is one of the most interesting things in connection

with the chapel.

When the Reformed Faith ousted Popery the jurisdiction of the Bishop

of London over this chapel ceased, and it has ever since remained a

benefice donative over which the Bishop has no power of visitation

or deprivation, since the Tower itself is extra-parochial. Private

marriages could be solemnised at St Peter’s, and in Ben Jonson’s “Every

Man in his Humour,” this privilege is alluded to. One unlucky curate

of the chapel, however, was sent to prison in James the First’s reign

for having performed marriages and christenings in the chapel, and only

secured his liberty through the influence of Sir William Waad, the

Lieutenant of the Tower. Another clergyman named Hubbock and his son

were excommunicated in 1620 by Laud for committing the same offence.

Later on, however, the right of solemnising marriages and christenings

in this chapel was allowed, and still continues.

Samuel Pepys has described in one of his vivid word pictures a visit he

paid to the chapel after the Restoration, when he occupied one of the

hideous pews that then choked the floor, and which were only removed a

few years ago. “February 28, 1663–4. Lord’s Day. The Lieutenant of the

Tower, Sir J. Robinson, would needs have me by coach home with him;

where the officers of his regiment dined with him. I did go and dine

with him, his ordinary table being very good, and his lady a very

high carried, but a comely big woman, I was mightily pleased with her.

After dinner to chapel in the Tower with the Lieutenant, with the keys

carried before us; and I sat with the Lieutenant in his pew in great

state. None it seems of the prisoners in the Tower that are there now,

though they may, will come to prayers there.” With a monstrous gallery

built in the reign of George II. for the use of the troops of the

garrison, with the ugly square wooden pews, in one of which Pepys sat

“in great state”; with the pavement all broken and defaced, with walls

and columns whitewashed, and with the handsome carved Tudor ceiling

coated with lath and plaster, it is no wonder that to any one with a

respect for antiquity or love of beauty, St Peter’s in the Tower must

have presented a sad spectacle before its restoration. And it was not

until 1862 that any steps were taken to remove what was nothing less

than a public disgrace. The improvements were commenced by re-opening

the old doorway at the west end, which had been bricked up, the window

of Edward I.’s time was also restored, the broken fragments having been

collected and replaced in their original position. The lath and plaster

which for a century or more had disfigured the ceiling were removed,

and the finely carved old chestnut beams once more uncovered.