of the great walled city and its busy and wealthy port under the Norman
kings. This was the grant of Middlesex to the citizens by Henry I. This
grant, which was only abrogated in 1888 by Act of Parliament, gave
London the same rights over the county that were held in those days by
the earls and reeves of shires. Dr. Reginald Sharpe seems to think that
this charter was granted for a heavy money payment. But there are other
ways of looking at the matter. It would appear probable that King Henry
recognised the help the city had given him; first, in obtaining the
crown, and afterwards in maintaining his position. The King, no doubt,
wanted money. The citizens did not expect favours without payment; it
would have been contrary to all previous experience. But the gift was a
very real boon, one which could not very well have been valued in gold.
That a Norman king should have been willing to grant away the deer which
his father was said to have loved like his children shows clearly that
there was a strong sense of obligation in the King's mind.
The constitution of the city during the reigns of the Norman kings, if
we may judge by what we find in twelfth-century documents at St. Paul's
and in thirteenth-century documents at the Guildhall, must have been, as
Bishop Stubbs and Professor Freeman have pointed out, that of a county.
The municipal unity was of the same kind as that of the shire and the
hundred. The Portreeve accounted to the King for his dues. He was the
justice, and owed his position to popular election as approved by the
King. Under him were the aldermen of wards, answering very nearly to
lords of manors. The people had their folkmote, answering to the
shiremote elsewhere. Their weekly husting eventually became a "county
court," and there was besides the wardmote, which still exists, and led
eventually to the abolition of proprietary aldermen in favour of
aldermen elected by the wards.
At this period the buildings of the city began to assume a certain
importance we do not hear of under the Saxons. St. Paul's became a
notable example of what we now call Norman architecture. The nave
survived until the fire in 1666. The church of St. Mary le Bow, in
Cheap, still retains its Norman crypt. The great white tower, with which
the Conqueror strengthened the eastern extremity of the Saxon and Roman
wall, contains still its remarkable vaulted chapel. A few other relics
of the style survive, but St. Bartholomew's is outside the line of the
wall.
[Illustration: THE GATES OF THE CITY: LUDGATE AND NEWGATE.]
To the old gates must now be added one more--namely, Ludgate. "Ludgate"
or "Lydgate" is like Crepulgate, a Saxon term, and signifies a postern,
perhaps a kind of trap door opening with a lid. The exact date is
unknown, but the building of a new street across the Fleet, with a
bridge of access, is evident from documents mentioning the names of
persons who dwelt "ultra fletam," which are found early in the reign of
Henry I. Another gate was subsequently added--namely, Aldgate--in or
about the beginning of the twelfth century. The names of both these
gates have been subjects of much guesswork, not only by such
topographers as Stukeley, but even by Stow. Ludgate was, of course,
assigned to an imaginary King, Lud, celebrated in the great poem of the
Welsh bard, who made London the foundation of descendants of AEneas of
Troy. Much of this was extensively believed in the Middle Ages; and some
of us imagined that Ludgate might have been called in honour of one of
the heroes of the poem, until the real meaning of the word was pointed
out. With regard to Aldgate, a meaningless name, we always find it
spelled without the "d" in old manuscripts, and usually with an added
"e." Stow perceived that to be consistent he must put the "e" in; but he
did so in the wrong place, with the result that Alegate or Allgate,
perhaps meaning a gate open free to all, is turned into Ealdgate, and
has its age wholly mistaken. It was, no doubt, built when the Lea was
bridged, traditionally by Queen Maud, about 1110. Previously the paved
crossing, the Stratford, was reckoned dangerous, and passengers went out
by Bishopsgate and sought a safer crossing at Oldford. The last of the
city gates, Moorgate, was not opened till 1415. It was erected for the
convenience of citizens passing out among the fields. It is evident that
fortification had become a secondary object. Accordingly, it is often
described as the most spacious and handsome of the city gates.
The others, especially Ludgate and Newgate, were, we may be sure,
judging by Roman and mediaeval fortifications elsewhere, narrow and
inconvenient. There was probably an overlapping tower in front of the
exit, and the pathway described a semicircle, as we know was the case at
the Tower, where the present arrangement, by which a vehicle can drive
in, was not possible till the Lion Tower and its overlapping defence,
the Conning Tower, were removed. That something of the same kind existed
at the Old Bailey is evident on an inspection of the boundary of the
ward in a good map, where the overlapping is clearly marked both at
Ludgate and at Newgate. The roadways at both places were made straight,
the larger archways opened, and the stately portals, suggested by
Stukeley and others, erected, if ever, when the wall was no longer
regarded as a fortification. This view may, in part at least, account
for a statement that the Roman gate, which answered to Bishopsgate, was
considerably to the eastward of the mediaeval gate, removed in 1760. The
Roman gate, to be useful and at the same time safe, probably consisted
of a narrow passage, opening into the city at a point near the northern
end of the road from the Bridge. The passage, guarded by towers, would
have its exit some distance to the eastward, and probably, before it
reached the outer country, passed back under the wall. We see
arrangements of this kind at any place, like Pompeii, where a Roman
fortification unaltered may be examined.
We have thus, I hope, traced the beginnings of our great city, not so
clearly as to its origin as could be wished, but sufficiently as to its
development from a Roman fort or bridge head. Others will take up the
tale here and show how the walls and gates, the churches and the great
castle, the double market and riverside landing places, became by
degrees the greatest city in the land. London, rather than royal
Winchester, held the balance between Maud and Stephen, and with the
election of Henry II., the first Plantagenet, we come upon the
establishment of the modern municipal constitution and the long battle
for freedom. The Londoner set a pattern to other English burghers. His
keenness in trade, his vivacity, his tenacity of liberty and, perhaps
above all, the combination of duty and credit which brought him wealth,
have made his city what it is--the central feature of a world-wide
empire.
[Illustration: THE GATES OF THE CITY: MOORGATE AND ALDGATE.]
THE TOWER OF LONDON
BY HAROLD SANDS, F.S.A.
It has been well and wisely said that "the history of its castles is an
epitome of the history of a country," but the metropolis may proudly
boast that it still possesses one castle whose history alone forms no
bad compendium of the history of England, in the great fortress so
familiarly known by the somewhat misleading appellation of "The Tower of
London," of which the name of one portion (the keep) has gradually come
into use as a synonym for the whole. Of the various fortress-palaces of
Europe, not one can lay claim to so long or so interesting a history.
The Louvre at Paris, though still in existence, is so as a comparatively
modern palace, in which nothing now remains above ground of the castle
of Philip Augustus, with its huge circular keep, erected by that monarch
in 1204. The Alhambra at Granada is of a by no means so remote
antiquity, as the earlier portion of it only dates from 1248, while the
Kremlin at Moscow only goes back to 1367. Probably the sole building
erected by a reigning monarch as a combined fortress and palace at all
comparable with the Tower of London is the great citadel of Cairo, built
in 1183 by Saladin, which, like it, is still in use as a military
castle; but, secure in its venerable antiquity, the Tower is superior to
all. The greater portion of the site upon which the Tower stands has
been occupied more or less since A.D. 369, when, according to Ammianus,
the Roman wall surrounding the city of London was built. At this point,
which may be termed its south-eastern extremity, the wall crossed the
gentle slope that descended to the Thames bank, on reaching which it
turned westwards, the angle being probably capped by a solid buttress
tower or bastion. Although Roman remains have been found at various
points within the Tower area, it is not likely that any extensive
fortification ever occupied the sloping site within the wall at this
point, for the original Roman citadel must be sought for elsewhere, most
probably upon the elevated plateau between the valley of the Wallbrook,
and Billingsgate, where even now there stands in Cannon Street, built
into a recess in the wall of St. Swithin's church, a fragment of the
ancient Roman milestone, or _milliarium_ (known as "London Stone"), from
which all distances along the various Roman roads of Britain are
believed to have been reckoned. From what is known of the Roman system
of fortification, it is obviously improbable that there should have been
any extensive fortress erected upon the site where the Tower now stands.
Not only would this have been opposed to the Roman practice of placing
the _arx_, or citadel, as far as possible in a central and dominating
position, but in the present instance it would actually have been
commanded by higher ground to the north and west, while to the east free
exit to the open country would have been seriously impeded by the
extensive marshes (not as yet embanked and reclaimed) that then skirted
the northern bank of the Thames.
[Illustration: THE TOWER OF LONDON.
_Engraved by Hollar, 1647._]
According to the _Saxon Chronicle_,[1] King Alfred "restored" London in
886, and rebuilt the city wall, where it had become ruinous, upon the
line of the ancient Roman one; and, until the Norman Conquest, it seems
to have remained practically unaltered, nor does it appear to have been
damaged by the various Danish attacks in 994, 1009, and 1016,[2] though
frequently repaired afterwards during the Middle Ages. Without the
wall was a wide and deep ditch, while between the edge of the ditch and
the foot of the wall was the characteristic "berm," or external terrace,
about ten feet in width.[3] There is every reason to suppose that this
wall and ditch extended right across what is now the inner ward, or
bailey of the Tower, as far as what was then the river bank, to a point
somewhere near the site of the present Lanthorn Tower "k," where it
turned to the west; for when, in 1895, the range of buildings of
fourteenth century date (then known as the Great Wardrobe, "3") that
formerly concealed the eastern face of the White Tower was removed, part
of the ancient Roman wall was found to have been preserved within it,
and a fragment, having the usual bonding courses of Roman tile bricks,
has been spared, which may now be seen above ground close to the
south-east angle of the keep, together with the remains of the Wardrobe
Tower "s." If a line is drawn northward from this point[4] across the
present moat, it will be found to meet what remains of the old city
wall, which is still partly visible above ground in a yard known as
"Trinity Place," leading out of the eastern side of Trinity Square, on
Great Tower Hill. Such Roman remains as have been found within the Tower
area do not tend to favour the supposition that any large buildings,
save ordinary dwellings of the period, ever occupied the site. On his
first approach to the city from Kent, when Duke William discovered that
so long as he was unable to cross the Thames London could not be
immediately reduced, after burning Southwark in order to strike terror
into the citizens, he left it a prey to internal dissensions, and having
in the meantime received the submission of the ancient Saxon capital of
Winchester, he passed round, through Surrey, Berkshire, and
Hertfordshire, by a route, upon which the ravages of the Normans are
clearly indicated in _Domesday Book_,[5] to a position on the north of
London, thus gradually severing its communications with the rest of
England, so that neither men nor convoys of provisions could enter its
walls. Placing camps at Slough, Edmonton, and Tottenham, William himself
remained some distance to the rear of these last with the main body of
the army, and it seems probable that the actual surrender of London took
place at or near Little Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire,[6] some four
miles to the east of Hatfield, and then about eighteen miles to the
north of the city, which could be seen in the distance from the high
ground hard by.
According to Orderic, William, after his coronation at Westminster,
spent some days at Berkhampstead, during which "some fortifications were
completed in the city for a defence against any outbreaks by its fierce
and numerous population."[7] Meagre in details as is the history of this
early period, it would appear from the foregoing passage that William
caused two castles to be erected, one at either end of the city, hard by
the river bank, the western one becoming the castle of that Ralph
Baynard who gave his name to it and to the ward; the eastern one (after
the building of its stone keep) receiving the appellation of the Tower
of London.
When erected on new sites, the early castles seem to have consisted of a
bailey, or court, enclosed by wooden palisades, and a lofty circular
mound, having its apex crowned by a wooden tower dwelling, also within a
stockade, the whole enclosed by a ditch common to both; but though
nothing remains of these early castles in London, it seems probable that
the mound was dispensed with, and that the angle of the wall was
utilized to form a bailey, the side open to the city being closed by a
ditch and bank, crowned by stout palisades of timber, while the Roman
wall would be broken through where the ditch abutted upon it at either
end, the whole bearing a strong resemblance (allowing for the difference
in the site) to the castle of Exeter. Orderic goes on to say that
William at once built a strong castle at Winchester, to the possession
of which he evidently attached greater importance than that of London,
where the great stone keep was probably not even commenced till quite a
decade later, though Pommeraye, in a note to his edition of _Orderic_,
tells us "that it was built upon the same plan as the old Tower of
Rouen, now destroyed."
The advantages of the site selected for the Tower were considerable, the
utilization of the existing Roman wall to form two sides of its bailey,
its ditch isolating it from the city, while it was so placed on the
river as to command the approach to the Saxon trade harbour at the mouth
of the Wallbrook, then literally the port of London, and with easy
access to the open country should a retreat become necessary.
It is much to be regretted that London was omitted from the Domesday
Survey, for that invaluable record might have furnished us with some
information as to the building of the Tower, and perhaps revealed in one
of those brief but pithy sentences, pregnant with suggestion, some such
ruthless destruction of houses as took place in Oxford and elsewhere[8]
in order to clear a site for the King's new castle. Unless the site were
then vacant, or perhaps only occupied by a vineyard (for these are
mentioned in _Domesday Book_ as existing at Holborn and Westminster),[9]
some such clearance must obviously have been made for even the first
temporary fortifications of the Conqueror, although contemporary history
is silent as to this. The _Saxon Chronicle_ tells us that "upon the
night of August the 15th, 1077, was London burned so extensively as it
never was before since it was founded,"[10] which may have determined
William to replace the temporary eastern fortification by an enlarged
and permanent castle, he having then completed the conquest of England
and crushed the rebellions of his turbulent baronage.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE TOWER OF LONDON ABOUT 1597.]
Although the art of the military engineer was then in its infancy, the
Conqueror seems to have selected as his architect one already famous for
his skill. Gundulf, then just appointed Bishop of Rochester, was no
ordinary man. The friend and _protege_ of Archbishop Lanfranc, by whom
he had been brought to England in 1070, he had as a young man been on
pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and doubtless profited by his travels and
the opportunity afforded of inspecting some of the architectural marvels
of the Romano-Byzantine engineers. Although Gundulf had rebuilt the
cathedral of Rochester, to which he added the large detached belfry
tower that still bears his name, built other church towers at Dartford,
and St. Leonard's, West Malling (long erroneously supposed to have been
an early Norman castle keep),[11] and founded at the latter place an
abbey of Benedictine nuns, his reputation as an architect rests chiefly
on his having designed the keep of the Tower of London (probably that of
Colchester also), and built the stone wall round the new castle at
Rochester for William Rufus. While engaged in superintending the
erection of London keep, Gundulf lodged in the house of one Eadmer
Anhoende,[12] a citizen of London, probably a friend of the Bishop,
for we find his name occurring as a generous donor to Gundulf's new
cathedral at Rochester, where, by his will, he directed his own body and
that of his wife to be interred, and to have an obit annually. Gundulf's
work therefore consisted of the great keep (afterwards called the White
Tower), which he erected close to the line of the Roman city wall, and
some fifteen or twenty feet within it. At first this was probably (like
its sister keep at Colchester) only enclosed by a shallow ditch and a
high earthen bank, crowned by a stout timber palisade, the city wall
forming two sides of its perimeter, and probably broken through where
the ditch infringed upon it at either end. With the sole exception of
Colchester keep, which, as will be seen from the following table of
dimensions, is considerably larger, the tower or keep of the castle of
London exceeds in size the great rectangular keep of every other castle
in the British Isles. Unfortunately, the two upper stories of Colchester
keep have been destroyed, but sufficient remains (coupled with the
resemblance of its plan to that of the White Tower) to show that both
were designed by the same hand and erected about the same period, while
both alike were royal castles.
TABLE OF COMPARATIVE DIMENSIONS
LONDON. COLCHESTER.
Length (North to South) over all 121 feet 170 feet
Ditto within Buttresses 118 " 153 "
Breadth (East to West) over all 100 " 130 "
Ditto within Buttresses 98 " 115 "
Breadth of Apse 42 " 48 "
Diameter of Apse 21 " 24 "
Length (on South Side) over all 128 " 153 "
Number of Stories 4 now 2
Total Height 92 feet ---
Height of Two Lower Stories 42 " 32 feet
Thickness of Walls 15 " 14 "
Thanks to the drastic removals of recent years, the White Tower stands
to-day very much as when first erected. In plan it is practically
rectangular, but the north-east angle is capped by a projecting circular
turret containing the great main staircase that ascends from the
basement to the roof, serving each floor _en passant_, while the south
angle of the east face has a large semicircular projection that contains
the apse of the chapel. The main staircase terminates in a large
circular turret of two stories, that rises some twenty-nine feet above
the roof. The other angles terminate in three rectangular turrets about
fourteen feet square, and twenty-seven feet high above the roof. The
walls are at the base some fifteen feet in thickness, exclusive of the
steep battering plinth from which they rise, and which slopes sharply
outwards. They diminish by set-offs at each floor. The interior is
divided into two unequally sized chambers by a cross-wall ten feet in
thickness, running from north to south. Of these, the eastern one is
again subdivided by a thick cross-wall at its southern end, which is
carried up solid to the roof, while on the upper floors the central wall
is perforated by arcades of three, and four perfectly plain semicircular
headed arches. To the north and west the basement floor is about sixteen
feet below the existing ground level, which falls rapidly along the east
side, and on the south it is practically on the ground level, as the
ground there has not been artificially raised. The two larger chambers
of the basement have a modern plain brick barrel vault. The well, a
plain ashlar pipe six feet in diameter, is in the south-western angle of
the floor in the western chamber. The south-eastern chamber retains its
original stone barrel vault. This forms the sub-crypt of the crypt below
St. John's Chapel, and is lighted, or at least its darkness is made
dimly visible, by a single small loop in the east wall. It is now known
as "Little Ease," and is said to have served as the prison of Guy
Fawkes. The basement chambers have boldly sloped recesses in the walls,
with small loops high up in their heads, which afford the minimum of air
and light; but as they were only used for stores, this was not of great
importance. Ascending by the main staircase to the second floor, the
same subdivision into three chambers is continued, but these were
lighted by larger loops, that have been converted into larger windows at
the time of Sir Christopher Wren's renovations in 1663. The crypt of the
chapel opens from the eastern chamber, and has in its north wall a
singular dark cell eight feet wide and ten feet long, in the thickness
of the wall, in which Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have once been
imprisoned. The western chamber has in its north-west angle a latrine,
or garderobe, in the thickness of the wall. At the west end of its south
face is a large original opening, with parallel sides, having niches in
them. The masonry shows traces of where the arch and door jambs have
been torn away and the present large window substituted, probably during
Wren's alterations. There is little room to doubt that _this_ was the
_original door of entrance_, placed, as is usual, some distance above
ground, and probably reached by an external flight of steps, now
removed, protected by a similar fore building to that of Rochester
keep.[13]
Proceeding by the main stair to the third floor, we enter first what is
known as the "Banqueting Hall," which is lighted by four large windows,
and has a fireplace in its east wall, with two latrine chambers in its
north and east walls. Passing through a low doorway in the partition
wall, we enter the great western chamber, which has a fireplace in its
west wall, a latrine in its north wall, and is lighted by eight large
windows. Two newel staircases in the western angles ascend to the
battlements. In the south wall is a doorway leading to a passage at the
head of a small newel stair, which, rising from a door in the wall on
the floor below, formerly afforded a direct communication from the
palace to the chapel of St. John upon the third floor, without entering
the keep. At the foot of this stair, in the time of Charles II., some
bones in a chest were discovered by workmen engaged in repairs, which
were said to be those of the murdered Edward V. and his brother the Duke
of York. These were transferred; by the King's instructions, to the
vaults of Westminster Abbey.
Ascending to the fourth floor, there are two large rooms separated by
the cross-wall, the arcade of which was probably filled in with wooden
partitions. The larger or western room is known as the "Council
Chamber," and the other as the "Royal Apartments." Neither has any
fireplace. Over the vaulting of the chapel, close under the flat, lead
roof, there is a curious cell about seven feet high, lighted by small
loop windows, which extends the entire length of the chapel. Formerly
used as a prison, it must have subjected its miserable inmates to even
more trying variations of heat and cold than the famous "_Piombi_" of
Venice.
With the exception of the chapel, its crypt, and sub-crypt, which were
vaulted throughout, all the floors were originally of wood, and were
supported on double rows of stout oak posts, which in their turn
sustained the massive oak main floor beams.
The forebuilding, on the south face of the keep, was probably added by
Henry II. It survived until 1666, as it is shown in a view of the Tower
executed by Hollar about that date; but it appears to have been removed
prior to 1681.