THE TOWER OF LONDON
[Illustration: _View of the Tower in the time of Charles I._
(_From an etching by Hollar._)]
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. II.
[Illustration]
LONDON
GEORGE BELL & SONS
1902
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER XII. THE STUARTS—JAMES I. 1
XIII. CHARLES I. AND THE COMMONWEALTH 28
XIV. CHARLES II. 56
XV. JAMES II. 81
XVI. WILLIAM AND MARY 91
XVII. QUEEN ANNE 95
XVIII. GEORGE I. 100
XIX. GEORGE II. 114
XX. GEORGE III. 136
XXI. THE LATE REIGNS 142
THE FIRE OF 1841 142
THE FENIAN ATTEMPT TO BLOW UP THE WHITE TOWER,
JAN. 24TH, 1885 145
APPENDIX I. DISPUTES BETWEEN THE CITY OF LONDON AND THE OFFICIALS
OF THE TOWER AS TO THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF THE
TOWER 151
APPENDIX II. THE BEHAVIOUR AND CHARACTER OF THE THREE HIGHLANDERS
WHO WERE SHOT ON JULY 18TH, 1743 155
APPENDIX III. DATES OF RESTORATIONS CARRIED ON BY H.M. OFFICE OF
WORKS AT THE TOWER OF LONDON TO THE PRESENT TIME 169
APPENDIX IV. RECENT DISCOVERIES AT THE TOWER (WITH A PLAN) 171
APPENDIX V. THE BLOODY TOWER 175
APPENDIX VI. STAINED GLASS IN THE TOWER 177
APPENDIX VII. LIST OF THE CONSTABLES OF THE TOWER 179
INDEX 183
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES
PAGE
View of the Tower in the time of Charles I. (From an etching
by Hollar) _Frontispiece_
State Procession from the Tower in the days of the Stuarts 2
Arabella Stuart. (From a contemporary miniature) 12
Lady Arabella Stuart 14
The Earl and Countess of Somerset. (From a contemporary print) 16
Sir Walter Raleigh 18
Execution of the Earl of Strafford, May 12th, 1641. (From an
etching by Hollar) 36
Archbishop Laud. (From an etching by Arnt Pieters) 40
London before the Great Fire. (From an etching by Hollar) 60
London after the Great Fire. (From an etching by Hollar) 62
The Tower in the time of Charles II. (From an etching by Hollar) 64
Colonel Blood. (From a contemporary engraving) 66
William, Lord Russell. (From the portrait in the National Portrait
Gallery) 72
The Earl of Essex. (From an engraving by Picart after the painting
by Lely) 76
James, Duke of Monmouth. (From a contemporary engraving) 81
Execution of the Duke of Monmouth, July 1685 82
Portraits of James, Duke of Monmouth; Arthur, Earl of Essex;
William, Lord Russell; Archibald, Earl of Argyll; Colonel
Algernon Sidney; Sir Thomas Armstrong; Alderman Cornish; and
Sir Edmundbury Godfrey. (From an engraving by John Savage) 84
The Seven Bishops. (From a contemporary print) 86
The Seven Bishops going by Water to the Tower 88
The Flight of James II. 90
View of the Tower in the time of James II. 92
View of the Tower during the command of Lord Lucas 94
St Peter’s Chapel in the time of George II. (From an engraving by
Robert West) 96
View of the Tower in the time of George I. 100
The Earl of Derwentwater. (From a contemporary engraving) 104
North-west view of the Tower in 1753 114
Scotch Prisoners entering the Tower, 1742 116
Tower Hill at the time of the Execution of the Earl of Kilmarnock
and Lord Balmerino, 1746 122
View of Tower Hill and the place of Execution of the Rebel Lords,
1746 124
Charles Ratcliffe. (From a contemporary print) 126
Execution of the Rebel Lords, 1746 128
North-west view of the Tower at the time of the Execution of Lord
Lovat, 1746 130
Execution of Lord Lovat, 1746 132
Waggons going into the Tower with Treasure taken from the
Spaniards (temp. George II.) 134
West Front of the Tower in the time of George III. 136
Entrance to the Tower Menagerie in the time of George III. 138
The Tower from Tower Hill in the time of George III. 140
The Fire at the Tower in 1841 142
Another View of the Fire in 1841 144
Breaking into the Strong Room in the “Jewel Tower” and removal of
the Regalia on the night of the Fire, Oct. 30, 1841. (From an
etching by George Cruikshank) 146
The Great Court of the Tower, _circa_ 1790 151
View of St Peter’s Chapel in 1817 174
BLOCKS
The Moat, looking West 6
The Byward Tower and Moat from the Wharf 8
Entrance to the Bloody Tower and Steps leading to Raleigh’s Walk 24
The Byward Tower 28
Vaulting in the Cradle Tower 54
Old Cannon and Mortars on the West Side of the White Tower 58
Gate and Portcullis in the Bloody Tower 76
The Beauchamp Tower 98
Window in the Cradle Tower 102
The Tower from Tower Hill 108
Middle Gate 112
The White Tower, showing the Exterior of St John’s Chapel and
remains of the Roman Wall 172
PLAN showing Recent Discoveries in the Tower 170
THE TOWER
CHAPTER XII
THE STUARTS—JAMES I.
In Nichols’s “Progresses,” that mine of information regarding James
I., his court and times, it is related that James paid his first visit
to the Tower on 3rd May 1603, “when His Majesty set forward from the
Charter House and went quietly on horseback to Whitehall where he
took barge. Having shot the bridge, his present landing was expected
at the Tower stayres, but it pleased His Highness to passe the Towre
stairs toward St Katherines, and there stayed on the water to see the
ordinance on the White Tower (commonly called Julius Cæsar’s Tower)
being in number twenty pieces, with the great ordinance on the Towre
wharfe, being in number 100, and chalmers to the number of 130,
discharged and shot off. Of which, all services were sufficiently
performed by the gunners, that a peale of so good order was never heard
before; which was most commendable to all sorts, and very acceptable to
the King.”[1]
Owing to the plague then raging in London, the customary procession
at the coronation was omitted, although the King rode in state from
the Tower to Westminster, preparatory to the opening of his first
Parliament on 15th of March 1605, as the Londoners had made their
welcome for him ready. In Mr Sidney Lee’s “Life of Shakespeare,” he
states that Shakespeare, with eight other players of the King’s company
of actors, “walked from the Tower of London to Westminster in the
procession which accompanied the King in his formal entry into London.
Each actor received four and a half yards of scarlet cloth to wear as
a cloak on the occasion, and in the document authorising the grant,
Shakespeare’s name stands first on the list.” This is the only time
that we can positively know that Shakespeare was ever at the Tower; but
his frequent introduction of the fortress into his historical dramas
makes it certain that he must often have visited a place so full of
dramatic episodes and historical memories.[2]
Four months earlier, while staying at Wilton, news had reached James
of a plot to place the crown upon the head of Lady Arabella Stuart,
and a large batch of alleged conspirators were taken to the Tower in
consequence. Among them was Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Cobham, and his
brother, George Brooke, Thomas Lord Grey de Wilton, Sir Griffin
Maskham, Sir Edward Parham, Bartholomew Brookesby, Anthony Copley, and
two priests named Weston and Clarke. This conspiracy, if it deserves
the name, and for which Raleigh was for the second time sent to the
Tower, owed its existence to the unlucky Arabella, daughter of Charles
Stuart, Earl of Lennox, younger brother of Darnley, and consequently
James’s first cousin on the mother’s side.
[Illustration: _State Procession from the Tower in the days of the
Stuarts._]
Arabella Stuart was also related to the Tudors, and this double
relationship to the reigning sovereign and to the late Queen was her
greatest misfortune, and the cause of her untimely death. She appears
to have been amiable, refined, virtuous, and good-looking, but of a
somewhat frail physique and countenance, to judge by the excellent
miniature which Oliver painted of her. That her mind was not a strong
one is very evident, and one cannot be surprised that she became insane
under the burden of her misfortunes.
Lady Arabella was made use of as a tool by James’s enemies, and at
Lord Cobham’s trial it was conclusively proved that she had no share
in any of the schemes which had the placing of herself on the throne
for their object. Had it not been for her unfortunate marriage she
would probably have ended her life in peaceful obscurity. This unhappy
lady disliked the life of a court, and had lived principally with
her grandmother, old Lady Shrewsbury, “Bess of Hardwicke,” as that
much-married and firm-minded dame was nicknamed, in her beautiful homes
of Chatsworth and Hardwicke Hall, in Derbyshire. In the last year of
Elizabeth’s reign, Arabella, whose hand had been asked in marriage by
many suitors, and amongst them by Henry IV. of France, and the Archduke
Mathias, met, and fell in love with William Seymour, grandson of the
Earl of Hertford, and had been kept in close confinement by the Queen
in consequence.
The plot to place Lady Arabella on the throne was regarded as dangerous
by the court, owing to James’s unpopularity, which was not surprising,
for at that time everything Scottish was cordially detested by the
English. The Scotch had been as inimical to us as either the French
or the Spaniards, and for a far longer period, whilst the Scottish
alliance with France had added still more to the national dislike.
Neither was the new King’s appearance one to win the admiration of his
new subjects, for a more ungainly individual had surely never appeared
out of a booth at a fair. The English were as susceptible then, as
they are now, to the outward appearance of their rulers, and even
Henry VIII., for all his tyranny and cruelty, was popular among the
people on account of his fine presence; and when Elizabeth appeared in
public, all aglow with splendour, her lieges shouted themselves hoarse
with delight, and worshipped that “bright occidental effulgence.” What
a contrast to these was James Stuart. With his huge head, and padded
shanks, his great tongue lolling from out his mouth, his goggle eyes,
and rolling gait, and the incomprehensible, to English ears, jargon of
Lowland Scotch which he spoke, his was not a very kingly figure, and
he made anything but a favourable impression upon his new subjects. It
appears that Raleigh, at the time of James’s arrival, let fall some
remarks which were repeated to the King, to the effect that it would be
well not to allow the Scottish locusts to eat too much of the Southern
pastures. It has been supposed that Raleigh, at a meeting at Whitehall,
proposed to found a republic, and Aubrey, a contemporary writer, even
gives his words, “Let us keep the staff in our own hands, and set up
a commonwealth, and not remain subject to a needy beggarly nation.”
Raleigh met the King for the first time at Burleigh, when James, who
prided himself on his wit, said to Sir Walter, that he thought but
“rawly” of him; it is a vile pun, but is interesting as showing the way
in which his contemporaries pronounced Raleigh’s name.
Cecil, who had brought Essex to the scaffold, now lost no time in
bringing Raleigh, Essex’s rival, to the Tower, and on the 20th of
July 1603, the prison gates of that fortress once again closed upon
the founder of Virginia, on a charge of treason, based on the Arabella
Stuart conspiracy, nor did they open for him until twelve years had
passed. On the following day Raleigh attempted to stab himself with
a table-knife, for he seems to have been maddened by his treatment
by James and Cecil. In November the plague was so violent in London,
that the Law Courts were transferred to Winchester, and it was to that
city that Sir Walter and his fellow-prisoners were taken and tried on
a charge of “attempting to deprive the King of his crown and dignity;
to molest the Government, and alter the true religion established in
England, and to levy war against the King.”
George Brooke, a brother of Lord Cobham’s, and two priests were found
guilty and executed, Lords Grey de Wilton, Cobham, and Raleigh were
respited, and were taken back to their prison in the Tower. Cobham
never regained his liberty, he was a ruined man, and died probably in
the Tower. The place of his burial is unknown.
The de Cobhams were an early family of importance in the twelfth
century, and from the thirteenth to the sixteenth one of the most
powerful in the south of England. Henry de Cobham was summoned to
Parliament in 1313. The direct line ended in Joan de Cobham, who
married five times; her third husband was Sir John Oldcastle, commonly
called Lord Cobham, _jure uxoris_, but inaccurately, for he was
summoned to Parliament under his own name, Oldcastle.
In descent from Joan was Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham, attainted first of
James the First. He was born 1564, and succeeded to the title 1596–7,
and shortly after installed Knight of the Garter. He married Francis
Howard, daughter of the Earl of Nottingham, and widow of the Earl of
Kildare. He was committed to the Tower December 16th, 1603, tried, and
condemned to death, and actually brought out to be executed, but had
been privately reprieved beforehand by James the First, who played
with Cobham and Gray, and their companions, as a cat would with mice.
After fifteen years’ rigorous confinement in the Tower, his health
failed, and he was allowed out, attended by his gaolers, to visit Bath.
This was in 1617, and was taken so ill on his way back he had to stay
at Odiham, Hants, at the house of his brother-in-law, Sir Edward Moore.
He died, with very little doubt, in the Tower, January 24th, 1619,
but the place of his burial has been undiscovered. He had been well
supplied with books, for the Lieutenant of the Tower seized a thousand
volumes at the time of his death of “all learning and languages.” In a
letter from Sir Thomas Wynne to Sir Dudley Carlton (State Papers, Dom
Jac, 1st vol., 105), 28th of January 1619, occurs this passage: “My
Lord Cobham is dead, and lyeth unburied as yet for want of money; he
died a papist.” This probably was only gossip. While in the Tower he
was allowed eight pounds a week for maintenance, but very little of
this ever reached him, it probably was absorbed by his keepers and the
Lieutenant. During his long imprisonment Lady Kildare never troubled
herself further about him. She lived comfortably, first at Cobham, and
afterwards at Copthall, Essex.
By the will of George, Lord Cobham, 1552, the Cobham estates, by an
elaborate settlement, were strictly entailed, so that Henry, Lord
Cobham, only had a life interest, and the King could not seize them;
and probably it was to that fact he owed his life, for the King could
possess them during his life, but not alienate them.
Unfortunately, the next heir was the son of George Brooke, executed for
treason at Winchester, Lord Cobham’s brother, who, at the time of his
uncle’s death, was an infant of tender age, and without friends, so
negotiations were carried on with the next in succession, Duke Brooke,
a cousin of Lord Cobham’s, and this man parted with his prospective
rights to the King for about £10,000, which enabled this “specimen
of King craft” to enter into possession. Duke Brooke, dying soon after,
Charles Brooke, his brother, parted with several other manors to Cecil,
Earl of Salisbury. None of these transactions were legal; Henry, Lord
Cobham, was not dead, nor the children of George Brooke, William, and
his two sisters, Frances and Elizabeth. For some reason they were
“restored in blood,” but with the express proviso they should not
inherit any of the property of their fathers or their uncles; nor was
William to take the title of Lord Cobham. And this was all done with
the connivance of Cecil, Lord Burleigh, brother-in-law to Henry, Lord
Cobham. No wonder William Brooke became a devoted Parliamentarian in
the next reign, and died fighting against the King at Newbury, 1643.
Many letters of Henry Brooke have been preserved while in the Tower:
“To my very good Lord and Brother-in-law, Lord Burleigh.” He must both
have been clever and learned, for during his captivity he translated
Seneca’s treatises, _De Providentia, De Ira, De Tranquilitate, De
Vita Beata, and De Paupertate_: the original manuscript of one, _De
Providentia_, is in the library at Ufford Place, Suffolk, the seat of
his representative, Edward Brooke, Esq., written in a beautifully fine
hand. Raleigh and Cobham’s “treason” was that known as the Main or
Spanish Treason, one of the supposed objects of which was to place the
Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne.
[Illustration: _The Moat looking West_]
Lord Grey de Wilton, a young man of great promise, died in St Thomas’s
Tower in 1617, after passing nine years in the Brick Tower. Lord Grey
had made an eloquent defence during his trial, which lasted from eight
in the morning until eight at night, during which, according to the
Hardwicke State Papers, many “subtle traverses and escapes,” took
place. When Grey was asked why judgment of death should not be passed
against him, he replied, “I have nothing to say.” Then he paused a
little, and added, “And yet a word of Tacitus comes into my mind, ‘non
eadem omnibus decora,’ the house of the Wiltons have spent many lives
in their Princes’ service and Grey cannot beg his.”
For the next twelve years the Tower was Raleigh’s home, and not till he
had succeeded in bribing King James’s favourite, George Villiers, Duke
of Buckingham, by the payment of a large sum of money, did he again
obtain his liberty. Before settling down in the Tower, and while the
plague was still raging, Raleigh, with his wife and son, were taken to
the Fleet Prison on several occasions. At length they were placed in
the not uncomfortable rooms in the Bloody Tower, which he, with his
family and servants, must have quite filled, for besides Lady Raleigh
and her son Carew, there were two servants named Dean and Talbot, and
a boy, who was probably a son of Talbot’s. Their imprisonment was not
absolutely rigid, for they were allowed the visits of a clergyman named
Hawthorne, a doctor, Turner, and a surgeon, Dr John, as well as those
of Sir Walter’s agent, who came up from Raleigh’s place, Sherborn,
so that he was kept in touch with his affairs; one or two other
friends were also admitted. In addition to these privileges Sir Walter
was allowed the run—the liberty as it would be called then—of the
Lieutenant of the Tower’s garden, which lay at the foot of the Bloody
Tower, as has already been mentioned in the description of that place.
In 1604 the penal laws against the Roman Catholics were re-enacted
by Parliament, and in the following year the famous Gunpowder Plot
was discovered, with the consequence that in the month of November
of that year the Tower received many of the principal conspirators,
and still more of those individuals who were in some way or other
concerned in it. Foremost amongst the latter were the aged Earl of
Northumberland, Henry Percy, and with him were Henry, Lord Mordaunt,
Lord Stourton, and three Jesuit priests, Fathers Garnet, Oldcorn, and
Gerrard. Northumberland, besides having to pay an enormous fine, was
kept a prisoner in the Tower for sixteen years; Mordaunt and Stourton
were also heavily fined and remanded to the fortress during the King’s
pleasure; Fathers Garnet and Oldcorn were hanged—the former at St
Paul’s, in the usual manner, after being cruelly tortured, the latter
at Worcester. As for the third priest, Gerrard, I have in another part
of this work described the treatment he endured and his escape from the
Tower.
[Illustration: _The Byward Tower and Moat from the Wharf_]
Of the active conspirators, besides Guy Fawkes—who was executed with
Thomas Winter, Rookwood, and Keyes in Old Palace Yard—Sir Everard
Digby, the father of the accomplished Sir Kenelm, Robert Winter,
Grant, and Bates, were drawn on hurdles to the west end of St Paul’s
Churchyard, where they were done to death in the approved fashion of
execution for high treason.
Guy Fawkes and most of his fellow-prisoners while in the Tower had been
placed in the subterranean dungeons beneath the White Tower. Fawkes,
besides being tortured by the rack, was placed in “Little Ease,” in
which horrible hole he is supposed to have been kept for fifty days.
Father Oldcorn was imprisoned in the lower room of the Bloody Tower,
whilst Father Fisher was in the White Tower; Northumberland, the
“Wizard Earl,” as he was called on account of his leaning towards
chemical experiments, was lodged in the Martin Tower.
Until the month of August in that year (1605), Sir Walter Raleigh’s
imprisonment in the Bloody Tower had not been very stringent. Sir
George Harvey had filled the position of Lieutenant of the Tower, and
Sir George and Sir Walter were on friendly terms. His lodging, for a
prison, was comfortable enough; his wife and son were still with him,
Lady Raleigh having been confined of a second son about this time.
In addition to the attendance of his servants and the visits of his
friends, as I have mentioned before, he was allowed to have all the
books he required for the great literary labour that now began to
occupy much of his time. When not working in his little garden by the
Tower, or experimenting with his chemicals and decoctions in a small
outbuilding which he had built in the garden, or taking exercise on the
wall terrace which overlooked the wharf and the river beyond, he would
be writing at his “History of the World,” that wonderful fragment which
is one of the marvels of our literature.
Unfortunately for Sir Walter, his friend Sir George Harvey, with whom
he often dined and passed the evening, ceased being Lieutenant at this
time, being succeeded by Sir William Waad. Raleigh’s feelings towards
the new Lieutenant appear to have resembled those of Napoleon to Sir
Hudson Lowe. Waad, who had been Clerk of the Council, on his side seems
to have had a personal dislike to the great captive over whom he was
placed in charge, and to have done all he could—and he had the power of
doing a great deal—to render Raleigh’s life as unpleasant and galling
as possible. For instance, Waad ordered a brick wall to be built in
front of the terrace where Raleigh walked, so that the captive could
no longer watch the passing life beneath him on the wharf or river.
Then Waad complained to Cecil of Raleigh making himself too conspicuous
to the people who passed beneath the Bloody Tower, and, not content
with annoying Sir Walter, pestered Lady Raleigh, and deprived her of
the poor satisfaction of driving her coach into the courtyard of the
fortress, a privilege that had hitherto been allowed her. In these and
many other petty ways the new Lieutenant contrived to make himself as
unpleasant as he possibly could to Raleigh and his wife.
During the alarm consequent upon the Gunpowder Plot, Raleigh was
examined by the Council, probably in the Lieutenant’s, now the King’s
House, but naturally nothing could be found to implicate him with the
conspiracy, and the King had to bide his time before he could bring
his great subject to the block. In 1610, for some unknown reason, Sir
Walter was kept a close prisoner in his tower for three months, and
Lady Raleigh was taken from him.
In Disraeli’s “Amenities of Literature” is the following interesting
description of those friends of Sir Walter who shared his pursuits and
studies in the Tower:—
“A circumstance as remarkable as the work itself” (“History of the
World”) “occurred in the author’s long imprisonment. By one of the
strange coincidences in human affairs, it happened that in the
Tower Raleigh was surrounded by the highest literary and scientific
circle in the nation. Henry, the ninth Earl of Northumberland, on
the suspicion of having favoured his relation Piercy, the Gunpowder
Plot conspirator, was cast into this State prison, and confined
during many years. This Earl delighted in what Anthony Wood
describes as ‘the obscure parts of learning.’ He was a magnificent
Mecaenas, and not only pensioned scientific men, but daily
assembled them at his table, and in these intellectual communions,
participating in their pursuits, he passed his life. His learned
society was designated as ‘the Atlantis of the Northumberland
world’! But that world had other inhabitants, antiquaries and
astrologers, chemists and naturalists. There was seen Thomas
Allen, another Roger Bacon, ‘terrible and tho’ vulgar,’ famed for
his ‘Bibliotheca Alleniana,’ a rich collection of manuscripts,
most of which have been preserved in the Bodleian; the name of
Allen survives in the ardent commemorations of Camden, of Spelman,
and of Selden. He was accompanied by his friend Doctor Dee, but
whether Dee ever tried their patience or their wonder by his
‘Diary of Conferences with Spirits’ we find no record, and by the
astronomical Torporley, a disciple of Lucretius, for his philosophy
consisted of stones; several of his manuscripts remain in Sion
College. The muster-roll is too long to run over. In this galaxy of
the learned the brightest star was Thomas Hariot, who merited the
distinction of being ‘the Universal Philosopher’; his inventions in
algebra Descarte, when in England, silently adopted, but which Dr
Wallis afterwards indignantly reclaimed; his skill in interpreting
the text of Homer excited the grateful admiration of Chalman when
occupied by his version. Bishop Corbet has described
‘Deep Hariot’s mine
In which there is no dross.’
“Two other men, Walter Warner, who is said to have suggested to
Harvey the great discovery of the circulation of the blood, and
Robert Huer, famed for his ‘Treatise on the Globes’—these, with
Hariot, were the Earl’s constant companions; and at a period when
science seemed connected with necromancy, the world distinguished
the Earl and his three friends as ‘Henry the Wizard and his three
Magi.’... Such were the men of science, daily guests in the Tower
during the imprisonment of Raleigh; and when he had constructed
his laboratory to pursue his chemical experiments, he must have
multiplied their wonders. With one he had been intimately connected
early in life, Hariot had been his mathematical tutor, was
domesticated in his house, and became his confidential agent in the
expedition to Virginia. Raleigh had warmly recommended his friend
to the Earl of Northumberland, and Sion House became Hariot’s home
and observatory.”
The elder Disraeli has argued that Raleigh could not possibly have
written the whole of that large tome, “The History of the World,”
himself, for want of books of reference whilst in the Tower. But as
his friends supplied him with books, and he himself had probably taken
copious notes for the work while living in the old home of the Desmonds
at Youghal, in Ireland, where a remnant of the old Desmond library is
still existing, the argument can scarcely be considered proved. The
late Sir John Pope Hennessy has pointed out in his work on “Raleigh in
Ireland,” that, by an odd coincidence, the son of the sixteenth Earl of
Desmond, whose lands Raleigh held in Ireland, was a fellow-prisoner of
Sir Walter’s in the Tower during his first imprisonment in the fortress
during Elizabeth’s reign. Desmond died in prison in 1608, and was
buried in St Peter’s Chapel. Raleigh had this youth’s sad fate in his
mind, it seems, when he wrote from the Tower, “Wee shall be judged as
we judge—and be dealt withal as wee deal with others in this life, if
wee believe God Himself.”
An almost contemporary historian, Sir Richard Baker, refers to
Raleigh’s imprisonment in the following quaint manner:—“He was kept in
the Tower, where he had great honour; he spent his time in writing,
and had been a happy man if he had never been released.” A strange
description, surely, of what is generally understood by the term,
“happy man.”
Henry, Prince of Wales, seems to have been the only member of his
family who appreciated Sir Walter, frequently visiting him at the
Tower. On one of the occasions when he had left him, the young prince
remarked to one of his following that no king except his father
could keep such a bird in such a cage. The Prince’s mother, Queen Anne,
seems also to have shown some interest in Raleigh’s fate, and to have
tried to induce her miserable husband to set him free.
[Illustration: _Arabella Stuart._
(_From a Contemporary Miniature._)]
In 1611 Arabella Stuart was brought a prisoner into the Tower, and with
her, Lady Shrewsbury. When the news of Arabella’s marriage with young
William Seymour reached the King, her fate was sealed, for by this
marriage the half-captivity in which she had lived was changed into
captivity for life; and few of James the First’s evil actions, and they
were not a few, were more mean or cowardly than his treatment of his
poor kinswoman, Arabella Hertford.
She had never been known to mix in politics, and if she had any
ambition, it was the noble ambition of wishing to lead a pure life away
from an infamous court. Poor Arabella used to declare that although she
was often asked to marry some foreign prince, nothing on earth would
induce her to marry any man whom she did not know, or for whom she had
no liking.
At Christmastide of 1609, James, hearing a rumour that seemed to point
to Arabella being married to some foreign prince, had sent her to the
Tower, releasing her when he discovered that his fears were groundless,
and giving his consent to her marrying one of his subjects should she
wish to do so. Unfortunately, Arabella took advantage of the King’s
consent, trusting to his word, but she found to her bitter cost how
hollow and false that promise was. In the following February (1610)
she plighted her troth to William Seymour, both probably relying
upon the Royal word. Whether James had forgotten that Seymour was a
probable suitor for Arabella’s hand when he gave his promise cannot
be known, but Arabella could not have made a more unlucky choice, as
far as she herself was concerned, for the Suffolk claims had been
recognised by Act of Parliament; and the same Parliament which had
acknowledged James the First could not alter the order of succession,
and, consequently, William Seymour being the grandson of Lord Hertford,
by his wife, Catharine Grey, was in what was called the “Suffolk
Succession.” His marriage to Arabella brought her still nearer to the
Crown, and any children born of the marriage would have had a good
chance of succeeding to the throne.
The young couple were summoned to appear before the Council, and were
charged to give up all thoughts of marriage. But, in spite of King
and Council, they were secretly married in the month of May 1611—a
month said to be unlucky for marriages. Two months afterwards the news
reached the King, and the storm burst over the unlucky lovers. Arabella
was sent a prisoner to Lambeth Palace, and her husband to the Tower.
From Lambeth Arabella was first removed to the house of Mr Conyers at
Highgate, and thence she was to be sent to Durham Castle in charge of
the Bishop. At Highgate, however, she fell ill, or pretended to fall
ill, and the famous attempt made to escape by herself and her husband
took place.
By some means she procured a disguise in the shape of a wig and
male attire, with long, yellow riding-boots and a rapier, and thus
accoutred, on the 4th of June she rode to Blackwall, where she had
hoped to find her husband, but, failing in this, she rowed with a
female attendant and a Mr Markham, who had accompanied her from
Highgate, to a French vessel lying near Leigh, which took them on
board. Seymour, also disguised, escaped from the Tower by following a
cart laden with wooden billets. He got away unperceived, and managed
to reach a boat waiting for him by the wharf at the Iron Gate, but, on
arriving at Leigh, they found the French ship, with Arabella on board,
had put out to sea. The weather was against the ship in which Seymour
was sailing making Calais, and he had to go on to Ostend, where he
disembarked.
[Illustration: Lady Arabella Seymour.
_Sweet brother_
_every one forsakes me but
those that cannot helpe me.
Your most unfortunate sister_
_Arbella Seymaure_
_Her Autograph from the Original in the Possession of_ John Thane.]
Meanwhile, a hue and cry rang out from London. King’s messengers
galloped in hot haste from Whitehall to Deptford, and orders arrived at
all the southern ports to search all ships and barks that might contain
the runaways; a proclamation was issued to arrest the principals and
the abettors of their flight. A ship of war was sent over to Calais,
and others were despatched along the French coast as far as Flanders
to intercept the fugitives. When half-way across the Channel, one
of these vessels, named the _Adventurer_, came in sight of a ship
crowding on all sail in order to reach Calais; the wind, meanwhile, had
dropped, and further flight was impossible. A boat was lowered from
the _Adventurer_, the crew who manned it being armed to the teeth. A
few shots were exchanged, and the flying vessel, which proved to be
French, was boarded, and the poor runaway was taken back to the English
man-of-war; on board of her Arabella was made a prisoner, and as a
prisoner was landed at the Tower, never to leave it again until her
luckless body was taken from it for burial at Westminster.
James made as much ado about this attempted escape of the Hertfords
as if he had discovered a second Gunpowder Plot. And not only did he
have all those who had been concerned in Arabella’s flight seized and
imprisoned in the Tower, but kept the Countess of Shrewsbury and the
Earl strict prisoners in their house, and ordered the old Earl of
Hertford to appear before him.
From all appearances William Seymour showed a lack of courage at
this time, not unlike the husband of Lady Catherine Seymour in the
last reign, for he remained abroad while the storm with all its
fury fell and crushed his young wife. Poor Arabella lingered on in
her prison till death released her from her troubles on the 25th of
September 1615. She had been kept both in the Belfry Tower and in the
Lieutenant’s House, but had lost her reason some time previous to her
final release both from durance and the world. Her body was taken in
the dead of night to Westminster Abbey, and placed below the coffin of
Mary Queen of Scots. Mickle, the author of “Cumnor Hall,” and “There’s
nae luck about the house,” is credited with having written the touching
ballad on Arabella Stuart, which is included in Evans’s “Old Ballads.”
“Where London’s Tower its turrets shew,
So stately by old Thames’s side,
Fair Arabella, child of woe,
For many a day had sat and sighed.
And as she heard the waves arise,
And as she heard the black wind roar,
As fast did heave her heartfelt sighs,
And still so fast her tears did pour.”
William Seymour survived Arabella for nearly half-a-century; he married
again, his second wife being a sister of the Parliamentary general, the
Earl of Essex, the son of Elizabeth’s favourite and victim. In 1660
Seymour became Duke of Somerset, and lived just long enough to welcome
Charles II. He had shown far more loyalty to Charles I. than he had
done to poor Arabella Stuart.
In 1613, Sir William Waad, to the great delight of Raleigh, as well as
of the other prisoners in the Tower, vacated his post as Lieutenant. He
had been charged with the theft of the unfortunate Arabella’s jewels,
but his dismissal was also connected with a still more tragic story—the
murder of Sir Thomas Overbury—a murder which throws a very lurid
light upon the doings of James the First’s court and courtiers. Two
years before Arabella’s death, the Tower had been the scene of a most
foul murder. Scandalous as was the court of James, murder had not yet
been associated with it, but in the year 1613 the fate of Sir Thomas
Overbury added that dark crime to its other villainies.
[Illustration: _The portraiture of Robert Car Earle of Somerset,
Vicount Rochester, Knight of the most noble order of the Garter &ᶜ.
And of the Ladie Francis his wife._
_The Earl & Countess of Somerset._
(_From a Contemporary Print._)]
Macaulay has compared the court of James the First to that of Nero; it
would have been more correct to have likened it to that of the Valois,
Henry III. Although it was never proved, there were strong suspicions
that the somewhat sudden death of Henry, Prince of Wales, was brought
about by poison, and there is no doubt that poison was made use of by
James’s courtiers, as the death of Overbury proves. Sir Thomas Overbury
was the confidant of the King’s worthless favourite, Robert Carr, a
handsome youth who had been brought by James from Scotland in his
train, and whom he had knighted in 1607. James had also given Raleigh’s
confiscated estates to his favourite two years after making him a
knight, and in 1614 created him Lord Rochester and Earl of Somerset,
as well as Lord Chamberlain. Overbury belonged to a Gloucestershire
family, and had travelled on the Continent, whence he returned what
was then called “a finished gentleman.” Overbury and Carr were firm
friends, and it was probably on the recommendation of the latter that
James knighted Overbury in 1608. When, however, Somerset determined
to marry the notoriously improper Lady Frances Howard, the daughter
of the Earl of Suffolk, and the girl-wife of Lord Essex, from whom
she was separated, Overbury most strongly persuaded his friend from
committing such a rash action. His attitude coming to the knowledge of
Lady Frances, she vowed to avenge herself upon Sir Thomas, and carried
her threat to its bitter execution. On some frivolous pretext Overbury
was sent to the Tower; Lady Somerset, as Lady Frances had become,
notwithstanding Overbury’s advice, now determined to rid herself of
the man she mostly feared. With the help of a notorious quack, and of
a procuress, Mrs Turner, with whom she had been brought up, she set
about the task of consummating her revenge. Poison was supplied by Mrs
Turner, with which the unfortunate Overbury was slowly killed; but as
the drug—it is believed to have been corrosive sublimate—did not act
sufficiently quickly, two hired assassins, named Franklin and Lobell,
were called in, and stifled the victim with a pillow. Sir William Waad
at this time had ceased to be the Lieutenant, through Lady Essex’s
influence, and had been succeeded by Sir Gervase Elwes, a creature of
Somerset’s, who was not only cognisant of Overbury’s death in the
Bloody Tower, where he was confined, but even aided Lady Somerset in
her crime. Mrs Turner was the inventor of a peculiar yellow starch
which was used for stiffening the ruffs worn at that time; she wore one
of these ruffs when she was sentenced to die for her participation in
this murder by the Chief-Justice, Sir Edward Coke, and was also hanged
in it at Tyburn in March 1615, with the natural consequence that yellow
starched ruffs suddenly ceased to be the fashion. Lady Somerset was
also tried, and although found guilty of Overbury’s murder, received
a pardon from the King, but she and her husband, Somerset, spent six
years as prisoners in the Tower, where they occupied the same rooms in
the Bloody Tower which shortly before had been tenanted by the wife’s
victim. Sir Thomas Overbury was buried in St Peter’s Chapel, his grave
lying next to that of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.
Prince Henry’s death in 1612 was a terrible loss to Raleigh. The Queen
had already tasted Sir Walter’s famous cordial or elixir, and when
her son was given up by the physicians, Anne implored them to try
Raleigh’s specific medicine, which, according to its inventor, was safe
to cure all diseases save those produced by poison. Henry was already
speechless when the elixir was administered to him, but after he had
swallowed one or two drops he was able to utter a few words before he
expired. What was the nature of this wonderful mixture of Raleigh’s
cannot now be ascertained, although Charles II.’s French physician,
Le Febre, prepared what was believed to be the actual concoction and
wrote a treatise upon it. Some of its ingredients were indeed awful,
the flesh of vipers forming one of them, and it speaks much for the
strength of James’s Queen that she survived the taking of this terrible
physic.
[Illustration: VERA EFFIGIES CLARISSᴹᴵ VIRI DOMᴺᴵ GUALTHERI
RALEGH EQV AUR. etc
AMORE ET VIRTVTE
_The true and lively portraiture of the honourable and learned Knight
Sʳ. Walter Ralegh._]
Raleigh had intended dedicating his history to Prince Henry, but
after that young Prince’s death he seems to have lost his former
zest in the work. There is a story told that he threw part of the
manuscript into the fire on hearing that Walter Burr, the publisher
of the first edition in 1614, had been a loser by bringing it out.
Of that first part Mr Hume, in his “Life of Raleigh,” writes, “The
history, as it exists, is probably the greatest work ever produced
in captivity, except Don Quixote. The learning contained in it is
perfectly encyclopædic. Raleigh had always been a lover and a collector
of books, and had doubtless laid out the plan of the work in his mind
before his fall. He had near him in the Tower his learned Hariot,
who was indefatigable in helping his master. Ben Jonson boasted that
he had contributed to the work, and such books or knowledge as could
not be obtained or consulted by a prisoner, were made available by
scholars like Robert Burhill, by Hughes, Warner, or Hariot. Sir John
Hoskyns, a great stylist in his day, would advise with regard to
construction, and from many other quarters aid of various sorts was
obtained. But, withal, the work is purely Raleigh’s. No student of his
fine, flowing, majestic style will admit that any other pen but his
can have produced it. The vast learning employed in it is now, for the
most part, obsolete, but the human asides where Raleigh’s personality
reveals itself, the little bits of incidental autobiography, the witty,
apt illustrations, will prevent the work itself from dying. To judge
from a remark in the preface, the author intended at a later stage
to concentrate his history with that mainly of his own country, and
it would seem that the portion of the book published was to a great
extent introductory. Great as were his powers and self-confidence, it
must have been obvious to him that it would have been impossible for a
man of his age (he was in his sixtieth year when he began the work) to
complete a history of the whole world on the same scale, the first six
books published reaching from the beginning of the world to the end of
the second Macedonian war. In any case,” adds Mr Hume, “the book will
ever remain a noble fragment of a design, which could only have been
conceived by a master-mind.” And who, recalling those mighty lines on
death with which Raleigh bids farewell to his great work, but will
agree with the above admirable criticism of the work?
“O Eloquent, just and mighty Death! whom none could advise thou hast
persuaded: what now none hath dared thou hast done; and whom the world
hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised: thou
hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride,
cruelty, ambition of man, and covered it over with these two narrow
words: ‘Hic Jacet.’” How noble, too, are the introductory lines to Ben
Jonson, wherein he commends the serious study of history:
“... that nor the good might be defrauded, nor the great so cured;
But both might know their ways are understood,
And the reward and punishment assured.”
No wonder that James disapproved of such sentiments and said of the
“History,” “it is too saucy in censuring the acts of princes.”
To Raleigh, more than to any other of the great Elizabethan heroes,
does England owe her mighty earth-embracing dominion. Sir Walter
never ceased to urge the expansion of the empire, nor wearied in his
efforts to make the English fleet the foremost in all the seas, not
only as a check to Spain, but in order that the colonial possessions
of the kingdom might be increased; and he, more than any of our great
soldier-statesmen deserved those noble lines of Milton: “Those who of
thy free Grace didst build up this Brittanick Empire to a glorious and
enviable height, with all her daughter islands about her, stay us in
this felicitie.”
In 1616 Raleigh was allowed to leave the fortress, but, as I have said
before, in order to obtain his liberty he had been obliged to bribe
George Villiers and his brother, who had roused James’s cupidity by
persuading him that if Raleigh were allowed to lead a fresh expedition
to the West Indies, he might return with a great treasure of which
James would take the lion’s share. A warrant, dated the 19th of March
of this year, was drawn up, giving Raleigh permission to go abroad in
order that he might make the necessary arrangements for his voyage.
The twelve years of imprisonment had sadly marred and aged the gallant
knight, but his spirit was as bold and courageous as ever, and he
employed the first days of his liberty in revisiting his old London
haunts; many changes must have struck him in the city. In Visscher’s
panoramic view of London, taken from Southwark nearly opposite to St
Paul’s, a very clear general impression may be gained of the appearance
of the English capital in that year of sixteen hundred and sixteen,
the year when Shakespeare was dying at Stratford-on-Avon, when Raleigh
was on his way to his last journey across the Atlantic, and when
Francis Bacon was writing his famous essays in Gray’s Inn. Those
quaint, circular, Martello-like buildings in the foreground are the
Globe and Swan theatres, with the Bear Garden close by; but the former
theatre, in Visscher’s view, is not the one so intimately connected
with Shakespeare, for that was burned down in 1613, and the building
represented here is the new one erected upon its site. Opposite to the
Swan Theatre, on the Surrey side of the river, are Paris Garden Stairs,
where was a much frequented ferry, Blackfriars Bridge now spanning
the river where this ferry once used to ply. There was also a theatre
at Blackfriars, and Shakespeare and his players must often have used
the ferry on their way from the Globe Theatre across the river from
Blackfriars, where the poet lived. In front is old St Paul’s, towering
over all the surrounding buildings and dwarfing the highest; scores of
spires and towers break the skyline as the eye follows the panorama
towards the west, where stands the former old London Bridge, covered
along its sides with picturesque houses. So large and massive are
the great blocks of gabled buildings that span the bridge, that it
presents the appearance of a little town crossing the river, such as
is the Ponte Vecchio at Florence in little. The gates at its ends are
covered with men’s heads, stuck all over their roofs like pins upon a
pincushion. More steeples and towers crown the opposite bank, and as
the eye travels farther eastward it is arrested by the Tower, with its
encircling wall, and its river wharf all covered with cannon. The river
is alive with vessels of every shape and size, State barges and little
pinnaces, great galleons and small craft, appear in all directions,
some with, some without sails. Beyond, the distant hills of Middlesex
and Essex are dotted with villages and hamlets, whilst on the heights
of Highgate cluster a group of windmills. It is a wonderful panorama
that the old Dutch artist has handed down to us. Looking at it we see
the same scene, the same picture of time-honoured churches and palaces,
the noblest river in the world flowing beneath them, and bearing on
its shining surface all the pleasure, commerce, industry, and travail
of old London, that Shakespeare did, when, standing near his theatre
at Bankside, he gazed upon that shifting scene. All is changed now,
except the Tower. The great Gothic cathedral of St Paul’s and most of
its surrounding churches, whose towers and spires helped to make old
London an object of beauty, perished in the great fire which swept
over the city fifty years after Visscher drew his panorama. Old London
Bridge escaped the fire, and indeed remained until 1834, although the
houses clustering over it had been removed at the close of the reign
of George II., and the only prominent building in the panorama which
Shakespeare or Raleigh would now be able to recognise, could they look
across the rivers Styx and Thames, would be the great White Tower with
its surrounding lesser towers and battlements. All the rest, like “the
baseless fabric of a vision,” has passed away for ever.
But to return to Sir Walter Raleigh. He invested all that remained of
his own and his wife’s fortunes in furnishing the expedition to Guiana,
which proved so disastrous, on which he now embarked. On his return, a
ruined man and a prisoner, he expressed his amazement at having thus
in one desperate bid placed his life and all that he possessed in
that unlucky venture. But before Raleigh had left England, Gondomar,
the Spanish Ambassador, had told his master, the King of Spain, that
Raleigh was a pre-doomed man. For James had not only revealed every
detail relating to the Guiana expedition to Gondomar, but on condition
that if any subject or property belonging to Spain were touched he had
promised to hand over Raleigh to the Spanish Government in order that
he might be hanged at Seville. To assure Gondomar of his good faith,
James actually showed the ambassador a private letter written him by
Raleigh, in which the exact number of his ships, men, and the place
where the great silver mine was said to be located on the Orinoco, were
all set forth. As the Spaniards claimed the whole of Guiana, it was
evident that if Raleigh landed there he must infringe upon the Spanish
possessions, and thus place himself, according to James’s promise to
Gondomar, in the power of his enemies.
The expedition sailed from England at the end of March 1617, from
Plymouth, and consisted of fourteen ships and nine hundred men. But
its story was one of continued disaster, and on the 21st of June 1618,
writing to his friend Lord Carew, Raleigh gives a detailed account of
all his misfortunes. In the postscript he adds: “I beg you will excuse
me to my Lords for not writing to them, because want of sleep for fear
of being surprised in my cabin at night” (even on his own ship he
was a prisoner, the crew having mutinied) “has almost deprived me of
sight, and some return of the pleurisy which I had in the Tower has so
weakened my hand that I cannot hold the pen.” Sir Walter’s eldest son
was killed gallantly fighting in Guiana.
Then followed a miserable time, and on his road to London the hope of
life at times impelled him to attempt escape, but he was doomed to
drink the bitter cup of his King’s ingratitude to the dregs. On the
10th of August he again entered the Tower where so much of his life had
been spent, and which was now to be his last abode on earth.
The next day the Council of State met to decide upon Sir Walter’s
fate, and incredible as it seems, it was actually debated whether
Raleigh should be handed over to the tender mercies of the Spaniards or
executed in London. Surely if what passed on this earth could have been
known to Elizabeth, she would have burst her tomb at Westminster to
protest against this abomination, this unspeakable shame and disgrace
to the name of England.
James was now all impatience to get rid of Raleigh as quickly as
possible; he trembled at the threats of Gondomar, and had the sapient
monarch not given his word that Raleigh should die? The great
difficulty before the Council, however, was to find a pretext for
condemning Raleigh to death. Bacon and his colleagues racked their wise
brains to invent a cause by which he could be found guilty of high
treason. At length the Lord Chief-Justice, Montagu, with a committee
of the Council decided that the King should issue a warrant for the
re-affirmation of the death sentence given at Winchester in 1603, by
which it might be made valid and carried out. Sir Walter pleaded that
the King’s commission appointing him head of the Guiana expedition
with powers of life and death, invalidated the former sentence and its
punishment, both in the eyes of justice and of reason. But Sir Walter
was overruled. On the 24th of October the warrant for the execution was
signed and sealed by the King, and four days later Sir Walter was taken
from the Tower to the King’s Bench. He was then suffering from ague,
and having been roused from his sleep very early had not had time to
have his now snow-white hair dressed with his usual care. One of his
servants noticed this as he was being taken away, and telling him of
it, Raleigh answered, smiling, “Let them kem (comb) it that have it,”
then he added, “Peter, dost thou know of any plaister to set a man’s
head on again when it is cut off?”
[Illustration: _Entrance to the Bloody Tower and Steps leading to
Raleigh’s Walk_]
The end being now so certain and so near, the bright courage of the man
returned; there was no shrinking with the closing scene so close at
hand. He was not brought back to the Tower after his condemnation, and
he passed his last night upon earth in the Gate House at Westminster,
close to which the scaffold stood in Old Palace Yard. He had a last
parting that evening with his devoted wife, his “dear Bess,” but
neither dared to speak of their only remaining son—that would have
been too bitter a pang for them to bear. Sir Walter’s last words to
his wife were full of hope and courage: “It is well, dear Bess,” he
said, referring to Lady Raleigh having been promised his body next
day, the only mercy allowed her by the Council, “that thou mayest
dispose of that dead which thou hadst not always the disposing of when
alive.” Then she left him. During the long hours of that last night, he
composed those beautiful lines which will last as long as the language
in which they are written:
“Even such is time! who takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust:
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.
But from that earth, that grave, that dust,
The Lord shall raise me up I trust.”
Raleigh wrote these lines in a Bible which he had brought with him from
the Tower.
Carlyle has summed up Raleigh’s life and death in the following
pregnant lines, in his “Historical Sketches”:—
“On the morning of the 29th of October 1618 in Palace Yard, a cold
morning, equivalent to our 8th of November, behold Sir Walter
Raleigh, a tall gray-headed man of sixty-five gone. He has been in
far countries, seen the El Dorado, penetrated into the fabulous
dragon-realms of the West, hanged Spaniards in Ireland, rifled
Spaniards in Orinoco—for forty years in quest a most busy man;
has appeared in many characters; this is his last appearance on
any stage. Probably as brave a soul as lives in England;—he has
come here to die by the headman’s axe. What crime? Alas, he has
been unfortunate: become an eyesore to the Spanish, and did not
discover El Dorado mine. Since Winchester, when John Gibb came
galloping (with a reprieve), he has been lain thirteen years in
the Tower; the travails of that strong heart have been many. Poor
Raleigh, toiling, travelling always: in Court drawing-rooms, on the
hot shore of Guiana, with gold and promotions in his fancy, with
suicide, death, and despair in clear sight of him; toiling till his
brain is broken (his own expression) and his heart is broken: here
stands he at last; after many travails it has come to this with
him.”
Sir Walter Raleigh died a martyr to the cause of a Greater Britain; his
life thrown as a sop to the Spanish Cerberus by the most debased and
ignoble of our kings. Raleigh’s faults were undoubtedly many, but his
great qualities, his superb courage, his devotion to his country, his
faith in the future greatness of England, were infinitely greater, and
outweighed a thousand times all his failings. The onus of the guilt of
his death—a judicial murder if ever there was one—must be borne by the
base councillors who truckled to the King, and by the King himself who,
Judas-like, sold Raleigh to Spain.
Some less interesting State prisoners occupied the Tower towards
the close of the inglorious reign of James Stuart. Among these were
Gervase, Lord Clifford, imprisoned for threatening the Lord Keeper
in 1617. Clifford committed suicide in the Tower in the following
year. About the same time, Sir Thomas Luke, one of the Secretaries of
State, and his daughter, were imprisoned in the Tower on the charge
of insulting Lady Exeter, whom they accused of incest and witchcraft,
but, whether the charges were true or false, they were soon liberated.
James’s court seems to have combined all the vices, for Lord and Lady
Suffolk were also prisoners in the fortress about the same time,
accused of bribery and corruption.
To the Tower also were sent the two great lawyers—Lord Chancellor
Bacon, and Sir Edward Coke—the former for having received bribes, the
latter for the part he had taken in supporting the privileges of the
House of Commons. Here, also, two noble lords, the Earl of Arundel
and Lord Spencer, were in durance, owing to a quarrel between them in
the House of Lords, when Arundel had insulted Spencer by telling him
that at no distant time back his ancestors had been engaged in tending
sheep, to which Lord Spencer responded: “When my ancestors were keeping
sheep, yours were plotting treason.” The dispute seems scarcely of
sufficient importance to have sent both disputants to the Tower.
In 1622 the Earl of Oxford and Robert Philip, together with some
members of Parliament, were sent to the fortress for objecting too
publicly to the suggested marriage of the Prince of Wales, afterwards
Charles I., with a Spanish princess; and the Earl of Bristol was also
in the Tower for matters connected with the same projected alliance.
It was not always safe to have an opinion of one’s own under James the
First.
The last State prisoner of mark to be sent to the Tower in James’s
reign was Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, who had been found
guilty of receiving bribes in his official capacity as Lord High
Treasurer.