The Tower of London

THE TOWER OF LONDON

PAINTED BY JOHN FULLEYLOVE, R.I. DESCRIBED BY ARTHUR POYSER
PUBLISHED BY A. & C. BLACK · LONDON · MCMVIII
TO MY FATHER Thomas Cooper Poyser THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
Full in the midst a mighty pile arose, Where iron-grated gates their strength oppose To each invading step, and, strong and steep, The battled walls arose, the fosse sunk deep. Slow round the fortress rolled the sluggish stream, And high in middle air the warder’s turrets gleam. Anonymous.
The history of the Tower of London is so closely bound up with the history of England, from the Norman Conquest onwards, that it is very difficult to write a record of the one without appearing to have attempted to write a record of the other. A full history of the Tower may read like an attenuated history of England. When the problem has to be solved within the compass of a single chapter the difficulties are very considerably increased. Then again, if a detailed account of Tower annals has been given in a preliminary chapter, there is nothing of any interest left to say when describing a visit to the several buildings within the Tower walls. If the dramatic scene in the Council Chamber of the White Tower, which ended in Lord Hastings being sent, with scant ceremony, to the block on the Green below by Richard III., be described in its proper place in the Historical Sketch (Chapter II.) it cannot again be spoken of in detail when the visit is paid (Chapter III.) to the room in which the event took place. Yet it is beyond doubt that a visitor to the Tower would rather be reminded of that tragic Council meeting when in the Council Chamber itself, than come upon it in the course of the sketch of Tower history, which he would probably have read at home beforehand and forgotten in detail. Still, those who read this book and have no opportunity of visiting the Tower expect that the characters in the moving drama of its history shall have some semblance of life as they walk across the stage. Such a reader demands more than mere names and dates, or he will skip an historical chapter as being intolerably dull. It is no consolation to him to be told that if he will take patience and walk through and round the Tower, in imagination, by keeping his temper and kindly reading Chapters III. and IV., he will discover that much of the human interest omitted in the “history” will be found by the wayside in the “walks.”