architecture. It consists of a nave, with vaulted aisles, having an
apsidal eastern termination. It is covered by a plain barrel vault, and
on the fourth floor level has a triforial gallery, also vaulted. It is
connected by two doors with the gallery in the thickness of the wall
that surrounds this floor, from one of the windows of which it is said
that Bishop Ralph Flambard effected his remarkable escape.
It is probable that at first (except the chapel, which was covered by
its own independent roof) there were two separate high-pitched roofs,
one covering each division, and not rising above the battlements, the
wall gallery serving as a kind of additional fighting deck, for which
reason it was carried round the triforium of the chapel. As the need for
this diminished, two large additional rooms were gained by raising the
central wall a story, and superposing a flat, lead roof.
The absence of privacy, fireplaces, and sanitary accommodation on this
fourth floor, with the cold draughts from the stairways and windows of
the wall-gallery, must have been well-nigh intolerable; nor could wooden
screens, hangings, or charcoal brasiers have rendered it endurable. It
is not surprising, therefore, that under Henry III. the palace was
considerably enlarged, or that these chambers were abandoned by him for
warmer quarters below, in the Lanthorn Tower "k," and its new turret
"J" although the chapel and council chamber continued to be used down to
a much later date.
After the siege of Rochester by William Rufus in 1088, Gundulf had built
a _stone_ wall round the new castle of Rochester. This probably moved
the King to enclose the Tower of London with a similar wall, for the
_Saxon Chronicle_ tells us that in 1091 "a stone wall was being wrought
about the Tower, a stone bridge across the Thames was being built, and a
great hall was being erected at Westminster, whereby the citizens of
London were grievously oppressed."[14]
Now, as Gundulf did not die until 1108, it is by no means improbable
that, while superintending the erection of these two great towers at
London and Colchester,[15] he also constructed the stone wall round the
former, for the chronicler says of him that "in opere caementarii
plurimum sciens et efficax erat."[16]
As it is on record that the smaller keep of Dover, built by Henry II.
nearly a century later, was upwards of ten years in construction, while
some additional time had been consumed--in the collection of materials
and workmen--with the preliminary preparation of the site, it does not
seem probable that the great Tower of London (honeycombed as its walls
are with cells and mural passages) could have been erected in a much
shorter space of time. When the ruder appliances of the earlier period
are taken into account, such a keep could not have been built in a
hurry, for time would be needed to allow the great mass of the
foundation to gradually settle, and for the mortar to set. Although
preparations for its erection may have begun as early as 1083, it seems
more probable that the White Tower was not commenced much before 1087,
or completed before 1097.
Stow, quoting from FitzStephen's _Description of London_,[17] mentions
the White Tower as being "sore shaken by a great tempest of wind in the
year 1091," which, as I do not (with the conspicuous modesty of the late
Professor Freeman) "venture to _set aside_ the authority of the
chronicles"[18] when they have the audacity to differ from my
preconceived ideas, seems to me reasonable ground upon which to argue
that not only was the White Tower then in course of erection, but that
in that year the works were not in a very advanced state. That it must
have been completed prior to 1100 is evidenced by the fact that King
Henry I., on succeeding to the throne in August of that year, committed
to the custody of William de Mandeville, then Constable of the Tower,
his brother's corrupt minister, Ranulph (or Ralph) Flambard, Bishop of
Durham. The chronicler exultingly tells us that he was ordered[19] "to
be kept in fetters, and in the gloom of a dungeon," which must have been
either "Little Ease" or the small dark cell opening from the crypt of
St. John's Chapel, afterwards rendered famous by the imprisonment there
of Sir Walter Raleigh.
Although the great fortress-palace was to subsequently acquire a most
sinister reputation as a state prison, yet the present is the first
recorded instance of the committal of a great and notorious offender to
its dungeon cells. Subsequently, however, the severity of the bishop's
imprisonment appears to have been somewhat mitigated, for the King
ordered him to be allowed the large sum of two shillings a day for his
maintenance; so that, although a prisoner, he was enabled to fare
sumptuously.
One day after the Christmas of 1101, a long rope having been secretly
conveyed to him, concealed in a cask of wine, by one of his servants, he
caused a plentiful banquet to be served up, to which he invited his
keepers, and having intoxicated them to such a degree that they slept
soundly, the bishop secured the cord to a mullion in one of the double
windows of the southern wall-gallery in the keep, and, catching up his
pastoral staff, began to lower himself down. Having forgotten to put on
gloves, and being a heavy, stout man, the rope severely lacerated his
hands, and as it did not reach the ground he fell some feet and was
severely bruised. His trusty followers had horses in readiness, on one
of which they mounted him. The party fled to the coast, took ship, and
crossed over to Normandy to seek refuge with Duke Robert.[20] After some
time had elapsed, he contrived to make his peace with Henry, who allowed
him to return to England, when he regained his See of Durham, of which
he completed the cathedral, and also added to the works of the great
castle there. The window from which he is supposed to have escaped is
over sixty-five feet from the ground, and his evasion was evidently
considered at the time a most audacious and remarkable feat, as more
than one contemporary chronicler gives a very detailed and
circumstantial account of it.
It is not until the Edwardian period of our history that we find castles
used as places for the secure detention of captives. In the earlier
Norman times dungeons were of little use, their policy being one of
ruthless extermination, or of mutilation, in order to strike terror into
rebellious populations.[21] Only persons of the most exalted rank, such
as Duke Robert of Normandy, Bishops Odo, of Bayeux, and Ralph Flambard,
of Durham, Earl Roger, the son of William FitzOsbern, with a few
distinguished Saxon captives, underwent a prolonged imprisonment.
The Tower of London as it exists to-day has, by a slow process of
gradual accretion round the keep as a nucleus, become what is known as a
"concentric" castle, or one upon the concentric plan, from the way in
which one ward encloses another; and its architectural history falls,
roughly speaking, into three chief periods covered by the reigns of
William Rufus, Richard I., and Henry III., all the more important
additions to the fortress occurring approximately within these periods,
as will be seen later on.
Commencing with the building of the great keep (now called the White
Tower), and the small inner or palace ward to the south of it, by
William the Conqueror, this at first was probably only enclosed by a
stout timber palisade on the top of a raised bank of earth, having a
ditch at its base. The first recorded _stone_ wall round the Tower was
that of William Rufus, already mentioned, and it is not improbable that
the wall marked "v" on the plan (only discovered in 1899 during the
erection of the new guard house) may have formed part of his work.
But little is known to have been added by Henry I. The sole remaining
Pipe Roll of his reign only records a payment of L17 0s. 6d. "in
operatione Turris Lundoniae," without any further mention of what these
works were, and as the amount is not very large, it is not probable that
they included anything of much importance. That the smaller inner or
palace ward to the south of the keep was already completed, is shown by
a charter of the Empress Maud, dated Midsummer, 1141, which granted to
Geoffrey de Mandeville (then Constable of the Tower, and third of his
family to hold that important office) the custody of the Tower, worded
as follows: "Concedo illi, et heredibus suis, Turris Lundoniae cum
'parvo castello' quod fuit Ravengeri";[22] and this "little castle" is
the before mentioned inner or palace ward, though how or where this was
originally entered from the city nothing now remains to tell us--most
probably at or near the point subsequently occupied by the Cold Harbour
Gate "u," at the south-west angle of the "turris," or White Tower
"r," for it is but seldom that the original entrance gates of castle
baileys or courtyards are removed, unless in the case of an entire
re-arrangement of the plan, with the consequent rebuilding thereby
rendered necessary.
Owing to the state of anarchy that prevailed during the troubled reign
of Stephen, and the destruction of all the Pipe Rolls and other records
that resulted, it is improbable that any extensive works were in
progress during that period.
Although the Pipe Rolls of Henry II. record a total amount expended upon
works at the Tower of L248 6s. 8d., but little appears to have been
added as to which we can speak with any certainty, unless it be the
forebuilding of the keep "y" (long since destroyed), the gatehouse of
the inner ward "u," and perhaps the basement of the hall or Wakefield
tower "l."
As at first constructed, the White Tower (like its fellow at Colchester)
had no forebuilding covering the original entrance, which was at the
western extremity of its south front, upon the first floor, then some
twenty-five feet above the external ground level. The small doorway
leading to the flight of stairs in the south wall which ascends to St.
John's Chapel, by which visitors now enter the keep, is not, and is far
too small in size to have ever been, the original entrance.
On the Pipe Rolls there are frequent entries of sums for the repairs of
the "King's houses in the Tower," probably the great hall "x," with
its kitchen and other appendant buildings; "of the chapel" (obviously
that of St. Peter, as that of St. John in the keep would hardly be in
need of any structural repairs at so early a date); and "of the gaol."
These last doubtless stood in an outer ward added by Henry I., and at
first probably only enclosed by the usual ditch and earthen rampart,
furnished with stout wooden palisades.
[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S CHAPEL, TOWER OF LONDON.]
It is somewhat difficult to assign any precise date for the first
foundation of the "Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula apud turrim." It is
not probable that it was contemporary with the Chapel of St. John, but
was doubtless erected by Henry I. when he enlarged the area of the outer
ward of the Tower; as this necessitated a considerable increase to the
permanent garrison, St. John's Chapel in the keep would no longer
suffice for their accommodation, and a new chapel would become
necessary. If St. Peter's Chapel had only been parochial (which at its
first erection it was not), it might have been possible to ascertain the
precise date of its foundation.
In 20 Henry II. (or 1174), Alnod, the engineer, received the sum of L11
13s. 4d. for works at the Tower. Other payments occur for sheet-lead for
the repairs of the chapel, the carriage of planks, and timber for the
kitchen,[23] the gateway of the gaol (probably Cold Harbour Gate "u"),
various repairs to the "King's houses within the bailey of the Tower,"
and occasionally for the repairs to the "turris" or great keep itself.
This, when first built, was of rough rag-stone, rudely coursed, with
very open joints in thick mortar, so that these repairs (consisting,
doubtless, of patching and pointing) occur with more or less frequency.
Not until 1663 did the keep receive its final disfigurement, at the
hands of Sir Christopher Wren, who cased part of the exterior in
Portland stone, rebuilt two of the angle turrets, and "Italianised" all
the window openings, thereby obliterating many valuable mediaeval
details.
All these outlays are certified by the view and report of two inspecting
officials, Edward Blund and William Magnus, the works being carried out
by Alnod, while the writs authorising payments were signed by one or
other of the justiciars, Ranulph de Glanville and Richard de Lucy, or by
the King himself.
The following reign marks a period of great constructive activity at the
Tower. The new monarch was one of the foremost military engineers of the
age; and when we consider the valuable experience in the art of war
which he had already gained, in the decade prior to his accession to the
throne, in conducting (while Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine)
various sieges of the castles of his rebellious barons in those
provinces, it seems improbable that he would have been satisfied to
leave the Tower in the condition it then was, with a keep standing in a
small inner ward, enclosed by a plain stone curtain wall, devoid of any
projecting towers, unless perhaps the base of the Hall tower, and the
Cold Harbour Gate (see plan), and a large outer ward, only enclosed by a
wooden palisade and ditch.
Richard must have been well aware of the enormous increase to the power
of effective defence conferred by salient or boldly projecting towers
flanking with their fire the curtain walls, which in England, at any
rate, were then somewhat of a novelty. At this time the Tower was
extremely defective in this respect, its great need being not for mere
repairs, but for effective modernization as a fortress.
Before embarking upon the hazardous enterprise of the third Crusade,
Richard left his trusted Chancellor, William Longchamp, to carry out an
extensive series of new works at the Tower, all of which were probably
from the designs of the sovereign himself.
In his valuable monograph upon the Tower,[24] the late G. T. Clark,
F.S.A., has fallen into a strange error as to the actual amount expended
upon works there during the earlier years of the reign of Richard I.,
which he states "do not show above one or two hundred pounds of
outlay." When this rather dogmatic assertion is tested by reference to
the existing documentary evidence of the Public Records, its glaring
inaccuracy is at once apparent; indeed, it might fitly serve as an
illustration of Pope's well-known lines:
"A little learning is a dangerous thing,
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."
The Pipe Roll of 2 Richard I. discloses an expenditure, "ad operationes
turris Lundoniae," amounting to no less than L2,881 1s. 10d., in itself
a sufficiently large sum, but one which, when multiplied twenty-fold in
order to bring it up to its present-day value,[25] is increased to
L57,621 16s. 8d. of our modern money!
The custody of the Tower was entrusted by Longchamp to one of his
dependents, William Puinctel, who seems to have acted as Constable and
superintendent of the new works, according to the Pipe Roll of 2 Richard
I.
It is well known that all the contributions levied in the King's name do
not invariably appear set out in full in the records, and there were
certainly other sources of revenue open to the Chancellor, of which he
doubtless took the fullest advantage.[26] The difficulty in this case is
not so much his raising the funds needed for carrying out these works
(which he undoubtedly did), but to account for their rapid completion in
so short a time.
If, however, it was possible, only seven years later, for Richard
himself to build, in a far more inaccessible situation, the _entire
castle_ of Chateau Gaillard in the short space of a single year, it need
not have been so difficult for Longchamp to carry out in two or three
years the works we are about to describe, especially when we consider
that he had practically _unlimited_ funds at his disposal.[27]
Until the period of which we write, the area enclosed by the Tower
fortifications lay wholly _within_, and to the west of the ancient city
wall, which had been utilized to form its eastern curtain. The perimeter
was now to be largely increased by the addition of a new outer ward,
"W," extending entirely round the fortress, having a new curtain wall
of _stone_, furnished with two large bastions (now entirely re-modelled
and modernised), known as the "Legge Mount" and "Brass Mount" towers,
"S" and "T." The so-called "North Bastion," capping the salient
angle of the wall between them, being a purely modern work of recent
date, has been _intentionally_ omitted from the plan.
The inner ward now received a large addition. To the east of the White
Tower, the old Roman city wall, where it crossed the line of the new
works (see plan), was entirely demolished, and a new wall, some one
hundred and eighty feet further to the east, and studded with numerous
towers at frequent intervals, took its place, and on the north, west,
and south replaced the former palisaded bank and ditch. Most of these
towers, as at first constructed, were probably open at the gorge, or
inner face, and not until a later period were they raised a stage,
closed at the gorge, and in several instances had the early fighting
platforms of timber replaced by stone vaulting.
When the remains of the Wardrobe Tower "s" were exposed some years ago
by the removal of the buildings formerly known as the "Great Wardrobe,"
"z" about sixteen feet of the Roman city wall was found to have been
incorporated with it; and so recently as 1904 several excavations were
made immediately to the south of it in order to ascertain, if possible,
whether any traces of the continuation southwards towards the river of
the line of the Roman wall could be found, or any foundations indicating
the point at which it turned westwards; but the demolitions and
rebuildings upon the site have been so numerous and so frequent that all
traces have been obliterated, nor is it probable that any other remains
of the Roman wall will ever be laid bare within the Tower area.[28]
A plain outer wall, devoid of towers, faced the river, and some kind of
an entrance gateway must have been erected at the south-west angle of
the new outer ward, where now stands the Byward Gate, "F." The inner
ward was probably entered by a gate, now replaced by the Bloody Tower
Gate, "m." A wide and deep ditch was also excavated round the new
works, which the Chancellor appears to have expected would be filled by
the Thames; but inasmuch as it was not provided with any dams or sluices
for retaining the water when the tide was out (a work carried out
successfully in a later reign), the chroniclers record with great
exultation that this part of Longchamp's work was a comparative
failure.[29]
The level of the greater part of the inner ward, "7," is (as will be
seen by the figures upon the plan, which represent the heights in feet
above the mean sea-level) some fifteen feet _above_ that of the outer
ward, and but little below that of Great Tower Hill. It seems probable
that much of the clay from the ditch excavated by Longchamp was piled up
round the western and northern sides of this inner ward, thus completely
burying the base or battering plinth of the keep (now only visible at
the south-eastern angle), while at the same time it served as a
revetment to the curtain wall, and strengthened the city side of the
fortress against any attack.
Whilst these works were in progress, the Chancellor seems to have seized
upon some lands of the Priory of the Holy Trinity in East Smithfield,
and removed a mill belonging to St. Katherine's Hospital. These illegal
usurpations, coupled with his excessive and unscrupulous taxation of
clergy and laity alike for the conduct of these new works, seem to have
aroused great indignation at the time, and doubtless contributed to his
sudden downfall. His high-handed proceedings appear to have formed a
ground for claims, not settled until, long years afterwards, a rent, by
way of compensation for the land so unjustly taken, was paid by Edward
I.
In 3 Richard I. the Pipe Roll records further expenditure upon lime,
stone, timber, brushwood, "crates" (a kind of wickerwork hurdle), and
stakes or piles for works at the Tower.
In 5 Richard I. there is an outlay upon a "palicium," or palisade,
"furnished with mangonels (or stone-casting engines) and other things
necessary," "circa turrim Lond," which probably refers to an outwork or
barbican covering the western entrance gate, for the expression "turrim"
must here be taken in its widest sense as we should now employ it,
meaning not merely the keep, but the whole castle.
The total amount expended during the last five years of Richard's reign
was only L280 14s. 10d., so that all the extensive new works previously
referred to were probably completed _before_ 1194.
Lest it be thought that undue importance has been attached to the
extensive use of timber stockades or palisades for the first defensive
works at the Tower, it may here be conveniently pointed out that, with
but few exceptions, the early castles were of earth and timber only.
The keep-towers, as well as the palisades, were of timber, and the
constant employment of timber by mediaeval military engineers extended
into the fourteenth century![30]
The lower bailey of the royal castle at Windsor was not walled with
stone until 1227, yet we find it in 1216 successfully resisting for
upwards of _three months_ a vigorous siege (aided by projectile engines)
by the combined forces of the French and the Barons.[31]
Still later, we find Edward I. erecting a strong temporary castle _in
timber_ at Flint[32] in his Welsh war of 1277; and, again, in his Scotch
war, building small castles, with keeps and gatehouses, _in timber_,
called "Peels,"[33] at Dumfries, Linlithgow, Lochmaben, Selkirk, and
elsewhere in 1300 and subsequent years.
The Pipe Rolls of John show an outlay for the entire reign of some L420
19s. 81/2d. on sundry works at the Tower, carried out by Master Elias, the
engineer, and Master Robert de Hotot, the master carpenter; but, save
for the stereotyped item of repairs to the King's houses, deepening the
ditch on the north towards the city, and building a mud or clay wall
round the Tower precinct or "liberty" (frequently mentioned in surveys
of later date), nothing is named, except the "Church of St. Peter at the
Tower," from which, in 1210, we find the King granting to one Osbert, a
knight, a gift of ten marks, and a hundred shillings to buy a horse for
his journey to Poitou. The Devereux tower, "c," the Bell tower, "a,"
Wardrobe tower, "s," and Cold Harbour gate, were probably all
completed about this time.
We now arrive at the long reign of Henry III., during which the various
Rolls are full of detailed information as to alterations, repairs, and
new works at the Tower, which, full of interest as they are,
considerations of space forbid our quoting _in extenso_.
In 1221 occurs the first instance of a body of prisoners being sent to
the Tower. They were taken at the siege of Bytham Castle, in
Lincolnshire, from whence seven men with carts were employed in their
transport to London, while sixteen iron rings were made for their safe
custody. New barriers _in timber_ were erected, and a well was made,
perhaps that at "w," but not probably that now existing in the
basement of the keep. A new tower adjoining the hall is built, probably
the upper story of the Hall tower, "l," having a roof of lead, and a
chapel or oratory, which still exists in this tower, and so helps in its
identification.
The Liberate Roll of 23 Henry III. contains directions from the King to
the Constable relative to the "whitewashing and painting of the Queen's
chamber, within our chamber, with flowers on the pointings, and cause
the drain of our private chamber to be made in the fashion of a hollow
column, as our beloved servant, John of Ely (probably the King's
favourite clerk and famous pluralist, John Mansel), shall more fully
declare unto thee."[34]