TOWER, PALACE, AND PRISON.
THE sun has risen and set for a thousand years on its gray walls; the
grime and verdure of a thousand years have cemented its hoary stones;
nations have grown and decayed; dynasties have been founded and wrecked
irretrievably; a New World has been discovered, and inventive genius
has almost changed the face of the earth and yet the Tower of London,
(cemented by the blood of beasts, as the fable has it,) which saw the
beginning and progress of these changes, still endures, and will no
doubt endure to the end of time.
[Illustration: TOWER OF LONDON.]
It seems a long, long time ago, that bleak Christmas day of the year
800, when the Pope of Rome placed the Iron Crown of Lombardy upon the
annointed head of Charlemagne under the dome of St. Peter's, amid the
huzzas of the multitude of Frankish warriors and barons who witnessed
the sacred ceremony, and yet far back in that nearly barbarous age, the
chroniclers tell us in their scholastic volumes of the monasteries,
that a Tower existed in London and on the same spot where now the
wardens patrol in their red tunics and explain historical conundrums to
dull Cockneys.
And some of the chroniclers go farther back and profess to believe that
the Tower is as old as the Roman occupation of Britain, and do not
hesitate to say that Julius Cæsar, who has been accused of so many good
and bad deeds, was the founder of the old forbidding pile of masonry.
Be that as it may, it is old enough to have earned a lasting infamy,
only once deserved in history by another grim fortress,--its twin
brother and accomplice in blood and oppression, the Bastile Of Paris.
That foul excresence on the fair face of the Earth has been swept away
by the stormy sea of a people's vengeance, while the Tower of London
still remains as a lesson of tradition, to tell of the crimes that God
has permitted kings and dwellers in high places to perpetrate against
the people, who have suffered and died and made no sign.
The charge to see the Tower of London is only sixpence in these days,
and for a sixpence a visitor may see everything; dungeon and trap door,
axe and scaffold, crown jewels and prison bars, the cages and the
dungeons and graves of those who suffered and died here during the long
night of centuries,--and all this for a paltry sixpence.
Amid the tramp and thunder of a hundred battles it has stood unshaken;
it is too strong for the destroying hand of man; and time, as if in
reverence, has trod lightly as he has stepped over its massive walls.
I saw its towers; four of them, standing up against the sky, bellshaped
and surmounted by weather vanes, one day from London Bridge, and having
a curiosity to see a structure, which even more than Westminster Abbey
is coeval with authentic history, I walked slowly to Tower Hill, passed
along the firm drawbridge, paid a sixpence and entering under the
spiked portcullis, I found myself in the Lion Tower which stands at the
corner of the moat or Tower ditch facing the Thames.
[Sidenote: DELIVERING THE KEYS.]
The extent of the Tower within the walls is twelve acres and five
roods. The exterior circuit of the ditch--now a garden, or rather an
apology for a garden--surrounding it, is three thousand one hundred
and fifty-six feet. On the river side is a broad and handsome wharf or
graveled terrace, separated by the ditch from the fortress and mounted
with sixty pieces of ordnance, which are fired on the royal birthdays,
or in celebration of any remarkable event. From the wharf into the
Tower is an entrance by a drawbridge. Near it is a cut or short canal
connecting the river with the ditch, having a water entrance called
the "Traitor's Gate,"--State Prisoners having been formerly conveyed
by this passage to Westminster, where the two Houses of Parliament now
sit, for trial. Over the Traitor's Gate is a building containing the
waterworks which supply the interior with water.
Within the walls of the fortress are several streets. The principal
buildings which it contains are the White or principal Tower, the
ancient Chapel of St. Peter-ad-Vincula, the Ordnance-Office, the Record
Office, the Jewel's House, the Stone Armory, the Grand Storehouse,
and the Small Armory, besides the house belonging to the Constable
of the Tower and other officers, the barracks of the garrison, and
the sutler's shops, commonly used by the soldiers. It is generally a
regiment of the line which serves as a garrison for the tower.
The principal entrance to the Tower is to the west. It consists of two
gates on the outside of the ditch, a stone bridge built over the ditch,
and a gate at the end of the bridge.
These gates are opened every morning with a strange, and for the
Nineteenth century, a very fantastical ceremony.
The Yeoman-Porter with a sergeant and six men march to the Governor's
house for the keys.
Having received them, he proceeds to the innermost gate, and passing
that, it is again shut. He then opens the three outermost gates at
each of which the guards rest their firelocks while the keys pass and
repass. The gravity with which the guards perform this ceremony, and
the nice precision with which they manoeuvre, is calculated to make
everybody but an Englishman laugh.
On the return of the Yeoman-Porter to the innermost gate, he calls to
the warden on duty to take the Queen's keys, when they open the gates,
and the keys are placed in the warden's hall.
At night the same formality is used in shutting the gates; and as the
Yeoman-Porter and the guard, return with the keys to the Governor's
house the main guard which, with its officers, is under arms,
challenges him saying:
"Who comes there?"
He answers:
"The Keys."
The challenger replies:
"Pass Keys."
The guards by order rest their firelocks and the Yeoman-Porter says:
"God save the Queen."
The soldiers then answer back:
"Amen."
The bearer of the keys then proceeds to the Governor's house and there
leaves them.
After they are deposited with the Governor no person can enter or leave
the Tower without the watchword for the night. If any person obtains
permission to pass, the Yeoman-Porter attends him and the same ceremony
is repeated.
The Tower is governed by its constable, called the Constable of the
Tower, and the Chief Nobleman or principal person next to the blood
royal, not including the Archbishop of Canterbury, is chosen to hold
this office by the Queen. At coronations and other state ceremonies
this officer has the custody of and is responsible for the regalia.
Under him is a lieutenant, deputy-lieutenant, commonly called governor,
a fort-major, gentleman porter, yeoman porter, gentleman gaoler, four
quarter-gunners, and forty warders. The warder's uniform is the same as
that of the Queen's Guards, or Beef Eaters.
It is rarely that the Tower is used as a State Prison, in these days.
When prisoners are detained here, by application to the Privy Council
they are usually permitted to walk on the inner platform during part of
the day, accompanied by a warder.
[Sidenote: IN THE LION'S MOUTH.]
The fire which took place toward the winter of 1841 destroyed a great
portion of the grand armory, and materially altered the features of
the Tower. The armory, said to have been the largest in Europe, was
three hundred and forty-five feet in length, and was formerly used as
a storehouse for the artillery train, until the stores were removed
to Woolwich. A very large number of chests with arms ready for any
emergency were in a part of the room which had been partitioned off;
and in the other part a variety of arms were arranged in elegant and
fanciful devices.
A fearful destruction of property, at once curious and valuable, took
place in this department; but one beautiful piece of workmanship being
preserved.
This was the famous brass gun taken from Malta by the French in 1798,
and sent with eight banners which hung over the gun, to the French
Directory by General Bonaparte, in _La Sensible_, from which vessel it
was captured by the English man-of-war, _Seahorse_.
In the Lion Tower, at the entrance, were kept the wild beasts in the
olden times, for the amusement of such monarchs as James I, who was too
cowardly to look upon any strife but that of chained or caged animals.
Here were kept lions, tigers, bears and bulls, wild boars, dogs and
fighting cocks. About one hundred and fifty years ago a young girl who
was employed as servant by one of the keepers, being of a rather bold
and courageous temper, she took pleasure now and then in feeding the
lions, and with great imprudence one day ventured to be a little more
familiar than usual with the king of beasts, relying upon his gratitude
because she was in the habit of feeding the animals. This time she went
too close to the cage of the lion, who caught hold of her arm and tore
it from the shoulder like a shred of rotten cloth, and before any one
could come to her assistance, he gave her a terrible gripe and killed
her instantly.
Another individual who had charge of the lions and fed them had a very
narrow escape from their claws, and he has related his story as follows:
"'Twas our custom," he says, "when we cleansed the lion's den to drive
them down over night into a lower place in order to rise early in the
morning and refresh their day apartments by cleaning them out; and
having through a mistake, and not forgetfulness, left one of the trap
doors unbolted which I thought I had carefully secured, I came down
in the morning before daylight, with my candle and lantern fastened
before me to my button, with my implements in my hands to despatch
my business, as was usual, and going carelessly into one of the dens,
a lion had returned through the trap door, and lay couchant in the
corner of the den, with his head toward me. The sudden surprise of
this terrible sight brought me under such dreadful apprehension of the
danger I was in, that I stood fixed like a statue, without the power
of motion, with my eyes steadfast upon the lion and his likewise fixed
upon mine.
"I expected nothing but to be torn to pieces every moment, and was
fearful to attempt one step back, lest my endeavor to shun him might
have made him the more eager to hasten my destruction. At last he
roused himself, as though to have a breakfast off me; yet, by the
assistance of Providence, I had the presence of mind to keep steady in
my posture, for the reasons before mentioned.
"He moved toward me, but without expressing in his countenance either
greediness or anger; but, on the contrary, wagged his tail, signifying
nothing but friendship in his fawning behavior; and after he had stared
me a little in the face, he raises himself up on his two hindmost feet,
and laying his two fore paws upon my shoulders, without hurting me,
fell to licking my face, as a further instance of his gratitude for
my feeding him, as I afterwards conjectured; though then I expected
every moment that he would have stripped my skin, as a poulterer does a
rabbit, and have cracked my head between his teeth, as a monkey does a
walnut.
"His tongue was so very rough, that with the few favorite kisses he
gave me, it made my cheeks almost as rough as a pork griskin, which
I was very glad to take in good part without a bit of grumbling, and
when he had thus saluted me and given me his sort of welcome to his
den, he returned to his place and laid him down, doing me no further
damage; which unexpected deliverance occasioned me to take courage,
that I shrunk back by degrees till I recovered the trap door, through
which I jumped and pulled it after me, thus happily through an especial
Providence, I escaped the fury of so dangerous a creature."
[Sidenote: THE BISHOP OF DURHAM A PRISONER.]
The Tower was for many hundreds of years an object of suspicion to the
good citizens of London, who deemed the massive fortress a standing
threat against their rights and privileges. Whenever a monarch wished
to wrest concessions from the Londoners, to wring a large sum of
money from their fears, or commit some other act of despotism, it
was customary, just previous to the attempt against the people, to
strengthen the Tower in its weakest part, and a ditch, or a wall, or
a bastion was constructed, to enable the Governor or Constable of the
Tower to hold the fortress for his Lord the King, in case the citizens
should resist the attempt on their purses or their liberties.
How little the gaping Cockneys and bulbous-eyed rustics, who stroll
around through the different apartments of this mighty castle, know or
even dream of the great deeds, terrible crimes, and high resolves of
those who have inhabited this Tower of London during a thousand years
of its most eventful and troubled history.
[Illustration: TRAITOR'S GATE.]
One dark night during the first years of the reign of Henry I, before
the Traitor's Gate had attained such a terrible fame as it afterward
obtained from the number of the victims who have passed under its grimy
arch, never to pass out except to the block on Tower Hill, a shallop
with two men whose arms lie between their feet at the bottom of the
boat, and a third whose arms are bound, stops at the wall where the
Water Gate is now shown, and in reply to the summons of one of the
armed men, the portcullis is hoisted, and Ralph Flambard, the fighting,
choleric, and rebellious Bishop of Durham, passes under the arch a
prisoner to the King, and the massive iron gates, rusty even then, are
shut firmly ere the sound of the boat's oars have been heard by the
wardens in the Inner Tower.
In a few days he makes a number of friends among the officials of the
Tower by his merry temperament, and as state prisoners were always
allowed to furnish their own tables in the fortress, the jolly bishop
has many a heavy carouse. Tun after tun of hippocras, canary, and sack
is conveyed to him, and he dispenses those medieval beverages to the
knights and men-at-arms--pages and guards, with no stinted measure.
One evening the Bishop receives a long and strong coil of rope in a
puncheon of Malmsley, and that very night, after he had drank all the
knights, men-at-arms and wardens under the oaken tables, the jolly
bishop flies to the ramparts, lowers himself down into the ditch, and
like the plucky prelate that he was, escapes from Henry's wrath.
One fine summer day when Henry III is King of England, Cardinal
Pandulph, the Legate of the Pope, presents himself and a long train of
attendants, with sumpter and service mules, at the land postern of the
Tower, and after a loud flourish of trumpets to announce his arrival,
the Cardinal is admitted to the presence of the King; and throws a bag
of Rose nobles on the table before the young monarch, for in those
days the Majesty of Britain did not scorn to borrow 200 marks of
Cardinal Pandulph, and one hundred marks of Henry, Abbot of St. Albans.
The money market was very tight in those days, and Kings often held
dealings with pawn-brokers, for we find Henry VIII pledging or melting
down nearly all the crown regalia to satisfy his creditors.
[Sidenote: COUNCIL CHAMBER OF THE TOWER.]
There is an apartment of very large and fine proportions in the third
story of the White or Main Tower, supported by two rows of beams. The
timber ceiling is flat, and the walls are pierced with windows on one
side and heavy arches appear on the other side; the whole structure
being of the rudest construction, yet grand looking withal; and this
is the great Council Chamber of the Tower, in which some of the most
startling and memorable scenes in English history have occurred.
It is Monday, September 29, 1399. The day, which was overcast in the
early morning, has turned out fair and bright, and the Council Chamber
and all the approaches to it are crowded with the highest nobles,
temporal and spiritual, in the land; steel clad knights, mitred abbots,
proud bishops, grave judges in cap and ermine, peers and lackeys, stand
on the stairs and in the ante-rooms, to catch a word or get a look at
the coming grand historical farce which is to end at last in a terrible
tragedy.
It is the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, and as the sun streams
through the stained glass of the oriel windows, and the shouts of the
London prentices at their games of ball, are wafted to the warder on
the battlements, who carries his partisan to and fro; a deputation
from each house of Parliament, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and other great Nobles, enters the
Council Chamber to hold a conference with the reigning Monarch Richard
II, now about to resign his Crown to the Protector Bolingbroke, who
afterward as Henry IV, will encounter more vicissitudes and suffering
than the monarch he is about so cruelly to depose.
The nobles seat themselves, the Protector enthrones himself, and a
ghastly figure, that of Richard II, stalks moodily into the Chamber,
clad in kingly robes, his sceptre in his hand, the Crown upon his head,
and there is silence for a moment among all present. Then Richard
says in a broken voice, but distinctly, "I have been King of England,
Duke of Aquitaine, and Lord of Ireland about twenty-one years, which
Seigneury, Royalty, Sceptre, Crown and Heritage, I now clearly resign
here to my cousin, Henry of Lancaster, and I desire him here, in
this open presence, in entering of the same possession, to take the
sceptre;" "and so," says Froissart, "he delivered it to the Duke, who
took it," and kept it, also, he might have added.
Before a year had elapsed the unfortunate monarch was put to death in
Pontefract Castle by order of his successor, Henry IV.
On a May day, in 1471, the streets of London resound with music, and
the populace are all in holiday attire to welcome Edward IV, who
returns victorious from the battle of Barnet, where he has slain, in
cold blood, Prince Edward, son to Henry VI, who is a prisoner in the
Tower. Next day Henry dies in a suspicious manner, and Edward has
leisure for a little while to found the Order of the Garter.
Edward dies, and he is not cold in his tomb before Richard III ascends,
or rather usurps the throne.
Edward has left two boys, the eldest of whom is lawful heir to the
Crown, by Elizabeth Wydville, his wife.
One dark night, the wind soughs in the trees and moans around the
battlements of the fortress, as two men, Miles Forest and John Dighton,
hired assassins, enter the sleeping chamber of the two young princes.
They steal to the bed, and having covered the mouths of the lads with
the bed-clothes and pillows, they throw their heavy bodies across the
couch. There are some faint, stifled moans, for a few minutes, and
then all is still but the mournful music of the storm without, for the
murderers have done their work but too well.
Sir James Tyrrell, who has been in waiting outside to see that the
bloody deed is accomplished, walks in, looks at the distorted features
of the children, gives an order in a whisper, and the still warm bodies
are carried out, and down a dark stone staircase, and are buried there
beneath a heap of stones to moulder till the Resurrection.
Here comes William Wallace, patriot and hero, to the Traitor's Gate, in
the year 1305, and after languishing in prison for months he is tied
to horses' tails and dragged forth, through Cheapside, and thence to
Smithfield, to die the death of a dog, his mutilated body being torn to
pieces in the presence of a noisy and hostile rabble.
[Sidenote: IMPRISONMENT OF ANNE BOLEYN.]
From this place, Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, is also dragged forth
to St. Giles, in the Fields, and having been hung up over a slow fire
by a chain from the middle of his body for two hours he is slowly
roasted to death. He was a follower of Wickliffe.
The Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV, is hurried to his death
in the Tower by Richard III, who orders him to be drowned in a huge
hogshead of sweet wine! A mode of death chosen, it is said, by the
victim himself in preference to any other.
The good and pious Sir Thomas Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, eighty years
of age, is imprisoned here, and is left to starve and rot in a dungeon
of this place of infamy. His misery is such that the man of God has
to write Secretary Cromwell, minister of Henry VIII: "Furthermore I
beseech you to be good, Master, in my necessity, for I have neither
shirt, nor yet other clothes, that are necessary for me to wear, but
that be ragged and rent too shamefully. Notwithstanding, I might easily
suffer that if they would keep my body warm. But God knoweth, also, how
slender my diet is at many times. And now, in mine old age, my stomach
may rot away but with a few kinds of meat, which if I want, I decay
forthwith."
When this God-fearing man was taken out to be beheaded, his bones
showed through his skin, and women wept and fell fainting at the cruel
sight.
In the Beauchamp Tower, at the very bottom or foundation, is a
subterraneous cell known as the "Rats' Dungeon," a hideous hell-hole,
below low-water mark, and dark as the despair of the human souls who
were confined there in the days when men were fond of cutting each
others' throats for conscience sake. At high water, thousands of rats
sought shelter in this dungeon until the floods subsided. Woe be to the
poor wretches there confined when the rats swarmed in, screaming like
human beings in agony.
In this den, prisoners were starved when the rack had failed to wring a
confession from them. Here all their shrieks and struggles were drowned
deep in this infernal hole with only the eye of the Almighty to look
upon the maddening horrors which the wretched prisoners had to endure
before Death came to relieve them.
One night with the rats was enough,--at break of day only a heap of
gnawed bones remained to tell the tale.
In one of the upper stories of the Tower there is an apartment with one
grated window and a rough oaken planked floor, where Anne Boleyn was
confined when her royal paramour had determined to send her neck to the
axe. The unhappy woman, as she passed through the Traitor's Gate, read
her fate in its dread aspect, and as she passed beneath its arch she
rose in the barge, fell on her knees and prayed God to have mercy on
her, and defend her from her Royal lover's rage. When she was shown her
apartment, its naked and forbidding aspect terrified her sore, and she
cried out in a maniacal frenzy, "It's too good for me, Jesu have mercy
upon me." Then she knelt down weeping and laughing like a mad woman.
When her head lay on the block the executioner was afraid to strike off
her head, as she refused to have her eyes bandaged, and at last he had
to take off his shoes, and cause another person to approach her while
he came from behind and clumsily hacked off her head.
When the Marchioness of Salisbury, an aged and venerable lady, was led
to execution, she stoutly declared she was not a traitor, and refused
to lay her head on the block, and the headsman was compelled to follow
her all around the scaffold, striking at her as if she was a bullock,
until finally her gray head was hacked off.
The Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of that name, having been
suspected of complicity in the hasty insurrection of Sir Thomas Wyatt,
she was committed to the Tower by order of her sister, Queen Mary.
As she passed under the Traitor's Gate, through which her mother, Anne
Boleyn, and Wyatt (who had fought for her) had preceded her, the proud
heart of Elizabeth failed her and she burst into tears. At first she
refused to get out of the boat, but seeing that force would be used,
she cried out to the rowers--
"Here landeth as true a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed at
these stairs; and before Thee, oh God, I speak it, having no other
friend than Thee."
Proceeding up the stairs she seated herself, and being pressed by the
Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Thomas Brydges, to rise, she answered:
"Better sit here than on a worse place: for God knoweth and not I,
whither you will bring me."
She lived to be Queen of England, and the mercy which was shown to her
she refused to many a poor wretch, whose bones Elizabeth allowed to be
gnawed clean and bare in the "Rat's Dungeon."
One more scene of horror.
[Sidenote: LADY JANE GREY ON THE SCAFFOLD.]
As Lady Jane Gray passed out of the Tower by the postern gate to Tower
Hill, she beheld the headless corpse of her husband (who had just been
decapitated) carried out on a cart to be buried in the Tower chapel of
St. Peter-ad-Vincula.
"All, Guilford, Guilford," said she, "the ante-past is not so bitter
that thou hast tasted, and which I soon shall taste, as to make my
flesh tremble; it is nothing compared to the feast of which we shall
this day partake in Heaven."
Then she passed on to the scaffold.
When on the scaffold she turned to the crowd and said:
"And now good people all, while I am yet alive, I pray of you to assist
me with your prayers."
Then she knelt, and turning to Father Feckenham, the Queen's chaplain,
asked him:
"Shall I say this psalm?"
And Father Feckenham, who was afterwards Lord Abbot of Westminster,
answered:
"Yea."
Then she said the psalm _Miserere Mei Deus_ and stood up and gave her
book, gloves, and handkerchief to her two attendant ladies; and she
commenced to untie her gown.
The executioner said:
"Shall I assist you to disrobe, Lady Jane?"
She answered him quickly:
"Nay, leave me in peace," and her two ladies advanced and disrobed her.
The headsman then desired her to stand on the straw, after her ladies
had tied a kerchief about her eyes, and as she complied with his
request, she asked him:
"Will you dispatch me quickly? Will you take it off before I lay me
down?"
"No, Madam," said he to the last question.
Then Lady Jane felt for the block, her eyes being bandaged, and
groping, she said:
"Where is it? Where is it?"
Laying her head on the block, she said slowly:
"Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit," and at that instant, her
neck being bared, there was a glitter of steel, a dull thud, and her
head rolled in the sawdust.
The Jewels and Royal Regalia are kept in a glass case, well guarded by
a warden, who is never allowed to leave the apartment for an instant,
unless when relieved. There is a charge of sixpence extra to see the
Jewel House, and a constant stream of visitors may be found in this
part of the Tower, the ladies particularly taking a great interest in
the splendor of the royal treasures.
St. Edward's Crown, first worn by Charles II, has since his time been
worn by all the monarchs who have ascended the throne of Great Britain.
This is the identical crown stolen by the daring Col. Blood, and the
one which was placed on the head of Queen Victoria when she was crowned
in Westminster Abbey, nearly two hundred years after it was stolen. It
is a very magnificent one, surmounted with a cross of diamonds. The new
crown, made purposely for her Majesty, is also here, and is made of
purple velvet, hooped with silver, and richly adorned with diamonds.
The ruby in it is said to have been worn by Edward, the Black Prince,
five hundred years ago, and the sapphire in it is considered to be of
great value; the crown altogether is estimated to be worth £100,000.
King Edward's Crown is supposed to be worth at least £200,000.
[Sidenote: THE CROWN JEWELS.]
The Prince of Wales' Crown is formed of pure gold, without many
jewels, while that of the Queen's Consort, formerly worn by Prince
Albert, is enriched with pearls, diamonds and other precious stones,
and is worth about £80,000.
[Illustration: 1. Queen's Diadem. 2. Prince of Wales' Crown. 3. Old
Imperial Crown. 4. Queen's Crown. 5. Queen's Coronation Bracelets. 6.
Temporal Sceptre. 7. Spiritual Sceptre.]
The Queen's Diadem, valued at £75,000, was made for Maria d'Este, the
unfortunate Queen of James II, who stood cowering in the rain and
sleet, under the walls of Lambeth Church, that awful night when her
husband abdicated, and William, Prince of Orange, landed at Torbay.
Before James crossed the river at Westminster, to join his wife in
their flight from England, he threw the Great Seal of Britain into the
Thames.
St. Edward's Staff, a part of the regalia, is four feet seven inches
long, bearing at the top an Orb and Cross, the orb containing, it is
said, a portion of the Cross on which our Saviour died.
The Staff is made of beaten gold, to the bottom of which is fixed a
steel spike, no doubt intended for defence, as a strong arm would be
able to drive it through any assailant. Nothing is known authentically
of the history of this Staff, but it is supposed to date back as far as
the time of the Crusades, on account of the portion of the cross which
it is said to contain.
The Royal Sceptre is of gold, ornamented with precious stones; also
with the rose, shamrock, and thistle, emblematical of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, all in gold; the cross is richly jewelled, and
contains a large diamond in the centre; the length of the Sceptre is
two feet nine inches, and it is valued at £40,000.
The other jewelled articles of the regalia are valued at £300,000, and
are as follows:
The Rod of Equity is three feet seven inches in length, and is made
of gold set with diamonds. The Orb at the top is encircled with rose
diamonds, and in the cross, which surmounts it, stands the figure of
a dove with wings expanded. This is sometimes called the Sceptre with
the Dove. Another sceptre called the Queen's Sceptre with the Cross,
though much smaller, is very beautiful in design, and thickly set with
precious stones.
[Sidenote: IVORY SCEPTRE AND SWORDS OF JUSTICE.]
The Ivory Sceptre was made for Maria d' Este, and another sceptre,
found behind the wainscotting in the apartment in which the regalia was
kept, is said to have been made for the Queen of William III.
[Illustration: 1. Imperial Orb. 2. Golden Salt Cellar of State. 3.
Anointing Spoon. 4. Ampulla.]
There are also two other Orbs, well worthy of observation, as are also
the Swords of Justice, the Ecclesiastical and Temporal; and the Sword
of Mercy or the Curtana, as it is called. This is pointless, as so is
its title, which could have no point when the sword was wielded by an
English monarch.
Then there is the Ampulla, to hold the Holy Oil for anointing the
foreheads and palms of the hands and necks of sovereigns. It is said
that Queen Victoria dispensed with the anointing of her royal neck,
fearing that it might soil a very costly lace chemisette which she
wore at her coronation. The Ampulla is made in the shape of an eagle,
and the base holds the oil. Besides the jewels already mentioned,
there are several others, among which are the Armillae, or Coronation
Bracelets, made of gold and rimmed with pearls; the Coronation Spoon,
for pouring out the oil, which is very ancient; and the Golden Salt
Cellar, shaped like a castle, with Norman turrets, windows and doors.
Then there are other salt cellars, a baptismal font, where the royal
children are baptised, a silver wine fountain, and many other valuables
which I have not room or desire to enumerate. Altogether, the crowns,
diadems, sceptres and other articles of the regalia, are worth about
seven millions of dollars, and they are of no use whatever, excepting
for show.
[Illustration: STATE SALT CELLARS.]
It must be remembered that hundreds of people die annually of
starvation in London, while these jewels, valued at seven millions of
dollars, are growing rusty, and every shilling which bought these
jewels was wrung from the blood, labor, and misery of the ancestors of
the radical voters who compose the English Trade Unions, and follow the
standard of John Bright. A just and honest Parliament would order the
sale of these Crown jewels, and the sum realized might find many happy
homes in the New World for those who now starve in the rookeries and
lanes of London.
[Sidenote: A DESPERATE ADVENTURE.]
There is only one attempt to steal the English Crown Jewels, mentioned
in history, and that was a most audacious one, and planned with a skill
worthy of the man who made the attempt.
The robbery was committed by Col. Thomas Blood, in 1673.
He was a native of Ireland, born in 1628.
In his twentieth year he married the daughter of a gentleman of
Lancashire; then returned to his native country, and having served
there as a Lieutenant in the Parliamentary forces, received a grant of
land instead of pay, and was, by Henry Cromwell, son to Oliver, made
a Justice of the Peace. On the Restoration of Charles II, the Act of
Settlement, which deprived Blood of his possessions, made him at once
discontented and desperate. He first signalized himself by his conduct
during an insurrection set on foot to surprise Dublin Castle and seize
the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. This insurrection he
joined and became its leader; but it was discovered on the very eve of
execution, and was rendered futile.
Blood, who was neither afraid of man or devil, escaped the gallows, the
fate of some of his associates, and concealing himself among the native
Irish patriots in the mountains, and ultimately he escaped to Holland,
where he was favorably received by Admiral de Ruyter, the Dutch Nelson.
Always ready for battle and spoil, we next find him engaged with
the Covenanters in their rebellion in Scotland in 1666, when being
once more on the side of the losing party, he saved his life only by
stratagem.
Thenceforward Col. Blood appears only in the light of a mere
adventurer, bold and capable enough to do anything his passions might
instigate, and prepared to seize fortune where-ever he might find her,
without the slightest scruple as to the means employed. The death of
his friends in the Irish insurrection, seems to have left in Blood's
mind a great thirst for personal vengeance on the Duke of Ormond, whom
accordingly he seized on the night of December 6th, 1676, tied him on
horseback to one of his associates, and but for the timely aid of the
Duke's servant, would have hanged the astonished and paralyzed noble on
Tyburn Tree, where he attempted to convey him. The plan failed, but so
admirably had it been contrived that Blood remained totally unsuspected
as its author, although a reward of one thousand pounds was offered by
King Charles for the discovery of the attempted assassins.
He now opened to the same associates an equally daring but much more
profitable scheme, had it been successful: to carry off the Crown
Jewels. It was thus carried out--Blood one day came to see the Regalia,
dressed as a parson, and accompanied by a woman whom he called his
wife; the latter professing to be suddenly taken ill, was invited by
the keeper's wife into the adjoining apartment. Thus an intimacy was
formed which was so well improved by Blood, that he arranged a match
between a nephew of his and the keeper's daughter, and a day was
appointed for the young people to meet. At the appointed hour came
the pretended parson, the pretended nephew, and two others, armed
with rapier blades in their canes, daggers and pocket pistols--a nice
wedding party indeed.
[Sidenote: FAILURE TO GET A CROWN.]
One of the number made some pretence for staying at the door as a
watch, while the others passed into the Jewel house, the parson having
expressed a desire that the Regalia should be shown to his friends,
while they were waiting for the approach of Mrs. Edwards, the keeper's
wife, and her daughter. No sooner was the door closed than a cloak was
thrown over the old man and a gag was forced into his mouth; and thus
secured they told him their object, telling him at the same time that
he was safe if he kept quiet. The poor old man, however, faithful to
the trust imposed in him, exerted himself to the utmost in spite of the
blows they dealt him, till he was stabbed and became senseless. Blood
now slipped the Crown under his cloak, another secreted the Orb, and a
third, with great industry, was engaged in filing the Sceptre into two
parts, when one of those coincidences, which a novelist would hardly
dare to use, much less to invent, gave a new turn to the proceedings.
The keeper's son, who had been in Flanders, returned at this critical
moment. At the door he was met by an accomplice, stationed there as
a sentinel, who asked him with whom he would speak. Young Edwards
replied, "I belong to the house," and hurried upstairs; and the
sentinel, I suppose, not knowing how to prevent the catastrophe he must
have feared otherwise than by a warning to his friends, gave the alarm.
A general flight ensued, amidst which the robbers heard the voice of
the old keeper once more loudly shouting, "Treason! murder," which,
being heard by the young lady, who was waiting anxiously to see her
lover, she ran out into the open air, reiterating the same cry. The
alarm became general and outstripped the conspirators.
A warder first attempted to stop them, but being very fat, at the
charge of a pistol which was fired, he fell down without waiting to
know if he was hurt, and so they passed his post. At the next door,
Sill, a sentinel, not to be outdone in prudence, offered no opposition,
and they passed the drawbridge.
At St. Katharine's Gate their horses were waiting for them; and as they
ran along the Tower wharf they joined in the cry of "Stop the rogues,"
and so passed on unsuspected till Captain Beckman, a brother-in-law of
young Edwards, overtook the party.
Blood fired a pistol but missed the Captain, and was immediately made
prisoner.
The Crown was found under his cloak, which, prisoner as he was, he
would not yield without a struggle.
"It was a gallant attempt, however unsuccessful," were the witty and
ambitious fellow's first words; "it was for a Crown!"
Not the least extraordinary part of this affair was the subsequent
treatment of Col. Blood. Whether it was that Blood had frightened
Charles II, by his audacious threats of being revenged by his numerous
associates, in case of his death on the scaffold, or else captivated
him by his brilliant audacity and flattery combined, it is certain that
Blood, instead of being punished as he should have been, was rewarded
with place, power, and influence, at court. Instead of being sent to
the gallows, he was taken into especial favor, and all applications
through him to the King, for favors, were successful.
It is said that Blood had told the King that he had been engaged to
kill his Majesty, from among the reeds by the Thames' side, above where
Battersea Bridge now spans the river, but was deterred from the crime
by the air of Majesty which shone in the King's countenance.
What more delicate flattery could be administered to a King than this?
Blood died peaceably in his bed in the year 1680.
It was not to be expected that the notorious favoritism of the
King toward Blood should escape satirical comment, and the Earl of
Rochester, a shameless scoundrel himself, wrote, on the attempt to
steal the Crown:
"Blood, that wears treason in his face,
Villian complete in parson's gown,
How much he is at Court in grace
For stealing Ormond and the Crown!
Since loyalty does no man good
Let's steal the King, and outdo Blood."
Edwards and his son were awarded £300 by a not over generous
Parliament, but the delay in payment of the sum was such that Mr.
Edwards was compelled to sell his claim for £120 to a Jew. In this case
virtue had its own reward, but no other.
[Sidenote: BIRTH-PLACE OF WILLIAM PENN.]
On the neighboring Tower Hill, which is now covered by fine mansions,
and where the shaft has just been sunk, giving admission to the
Thames Subway under the River, in the old days of violence and blood,
many a noble head was brought to be hewed off by the executioner's
shining axe. Lady Raleigh lived here on Tower Hill after she had been
forbidden to visit her husband in the Tower. William Penn was born in
a little old house in a little old dusty court on Tower Hill, and it
was here that he first imbibed his horror of bloodshed and capital
punishment. At the "Bull," a public house on Tower Hill, on April 14,
1685, died Otway the poet, of starvation, and around the corner in a
cutler's shop, which is numbered with the things that were, Felton
bought a large jack-knife for ten-pence, with which he assassinated
the magnificent Duke of Buckingham. At No. 48 Great Tower street, is
situated the Tavern called the "Czar's Head," built on the site of
an old pot-house, in which the Emperor Peter the Great, and some low
companions, used to meet to drink fiery potations of brandy and smoke
clay pipes.
In the very same spot, where the scaffold was formerly erected, and
where the gouts of blood fell dripping from the severed necks of
victims of the axe, marine stores are now sold, and sea-biscuits,
pea-jackets, hour-glasses, and quadrants are offered for sale.
The scaffold was generally built on four strong posts with a platform,
five feet high, and in the centre of the platform was placed the block.
The victim was generally bound, unless by desire the binding was
omitted.
For the gratification of those curious in such matters, it may be
as well to give the bloody head roll of the most illustrious of the
victims executed on Tower Hill, and the date of their decapitation.
June 22, 1535, Bishop Fisher; July 6, 1535, Sir Thomas Moore; July 28,
1540, Cromwell, Earl of Essex; May 27, 1541, Margaret Pole, Countess of
Shrewsbury; Jan. 20, 1547, Earl of Surrey, the poet; March 20, 1549,
Thomas Lord Seymour, of Sudeley, by order of his brother, the Protector
Somerset, who was beheaded Jan. 22, 1552; Feb. 12, 1553-4, Lord
Guildford Dudley; April 11, 1554, Sir Thomas Wyatt; May 12, 1641, Earl
of Strafford; Jan. 10, 1644-5, Archbishop Laud; Dec. 29, 1680, William
Viscount Stafford, "insisting on his innocence to the very last;"
Dec. 7, 1683, Algernon Sydney; July 15, 1685, the Duke of Monmouth;
Feb. 24, 1716, Earl of Derwentwater and Lord Kenmuir; Aug. 18, 1746,
Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino; Dec. 8, 1746, Mr. Radcliffe, who had
been, with his brother, Lord Derwentwater, convicted of treason in
the Rebellion of 1715, when Derwentwater was executed; but Radcliffe
escaped, and was identified by the barber who, thirty-one years before,
had shaved him in the Tower. Mr. Chamberlain Clark, who died in 1831,
aged 92, well remembered (his father then residing in the Minories)
seeing the glittering of the executioner's axe in the sun as it fell
upon Mr. Radcliffe's neck. April 9, 1747, Simon Lord Lovat, the last
beheading in England, and the last execution upon Tower Hill, when a
scaffolding, built near Barking-alley, fell with nearly 1,000 persons
on it, and twelve were killed.
[Illustration]