THE TOWER OF LONDON.

ALTHOUGH Britain presents numerous examples of military works, and her Welsh and Scottish borders are very thickly set with castles, the circumstances of the country have not been favourable to the production of military buildings of the first class. Our insular position has enabled us to dispense altogether with grand frontier fortresses; and our great nobles, although they often held their own against the Crown, and even encroached upon its legitimate powers, drew their resources from estates more or less scattered in position, and seldom possessed whole provinces, or ruled over a territory sufficiently compact and extensive to justify the construction of a great castle-palace like those of France, for the defence of the lordship and the residence of the baron. The keeps of Arques, Etampes, Provins, and Vez; the towers of Coucy and Beaucaire; the walls of Avignon; and the fortresses of Château-Gaillard, Carcassonne, Villeneuve-les-Avignon, and Pierrefonds, the details of which are familiar to the readers of the exhaustive work of M. Viollet-le-Duc, are due to a period when France was divided into provinces, the rulers of which were scarcely subordinate to its Crown, and were either actual monarchs elsewhere, or held much of the state privilege and power of independent sovereigns.

It happens, however, that, in that particular class of fortress of which the quadrangular Norman keep is the type, we have less to fear comparison, seeing that castles of this description are confined, or very nearly so, to our own country and to Normandy. Whereas, on the continent of Europe, in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, the earlier castles appear to have sprung directly from Roman, or debased Roman patterns, in Normandy a simpler and more original type prevailed, unlike what is seen in other parts of France, and which there is some reason to regard as the invention of the Normans themselves. These keeps, so remarkable for their simple quadrangular form and the immense solidity of their masonry, were erected in Normandy during the eleventh century, and are well known by such examples as Arques near Dieppe, Falaise, and Caen. By the Normans they were introduced into England.

An unaltered Norman castle is very rare, if indeed such exists at all. It is, however, certain that the keep had an enceinte defence and ditch, the latter sometimes part of an earlier earthwork; and in the base court thus formed were stabling and barracks, and other subordinate accommodations. These buildings were at first often of timber, and the enceinte a stout palisade, the object having been to afford protection to the garrison as rapidly as possible. Both at Dover and Windsor the enceinte wall, part of which is of late Norman date, stands upon the scarp of the ditch of an earlier earthwork, the solid chalk of which, as at Arques, is traversed by subterranean galleries. Where, as at Cardiff and the Tower, the wall is of great strength, and of the twelfth century, it is probable that the palisade was retained longer than usual, and the wall now seen the first constructed. No regular Norman wall would so soon have required reconstruction.

Where the Norman wall was of light construction or insufficient area, it had to be removed, and in the larger works replaced by a double and concentric ring of defences. These additions, usually due to the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., show that military engineering had made great progress, and that less dependence was placed upon passive strength, and more upon the skilful distribution of material. Having regard to the state of the military art at that period, and to the cross and long bows, catapults, rams, scorpions, and movable turrets that formed the weapons of attack, it would be difficult to improve upon these concentric works, either in general design or in detail of construction, or to show greater skill in flanking defences than appears at Corfe, Caerphilly, Conway, or Beaumaris, or in other of the castles built in the reigns of Henry and his son. This science, so successfully grafted upon the pure Norman works, was no doubt in some considerable measure derived from the East, where Cœur de Lion seems to have acquired the skill displayed in the construction of Château-Gaillard, and which, in the opinion of M. Le Duc, places him at the head of the military engineers of his day.

When, having crossed the Thames, the Conqueror marched in person to complete the investment of London, he found that ancient city resting upon the left bank of its river, protected on its landward side by a strong wall, a Roman work, with mural towers and an exterior ditch.

The enclosure, of about 370 acres, was in general figure a semicircle; the river forming the chord. The defences, commencing on the Thames at Blackfriars, upon the east bank of the Flete, swept in an irregular curve northward and eastward, by Ludgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, and the line of London Wall to where, trending eastward and southward, they took the line of Houndsditch, and appear to have abutted upon the Thames a little east of or below Billingsgate. Upon the west the Flete formed a respectable natural defence, and upon the east the line took the crest of the high ground just where it begins to subside into the low lands long occupied by St. Katherine’s Hospital, and now, more suitably, by the docks of that name. Towards the north the defence must have been wholly artificial, and is reputed to have been by a ditch which, in the later reign of King John, was deepened and made 204 feet broad, but which must have been a sufficient defence even at the time of the Conqueror. Ludgate, like the later Newgate, was placed in a re-entering angle of the wall, so that the road approaching it from the west ran for a short distance parallel to, and commanded by the ramparts.

London, therefore,—

“A læva muris, dextris in flumine tuta,”

resembled in plan and mode of entrance those large half-round Celtic earthworks sometimes found upon the banks of a watercourse; nor is there known to have been attached to or within it anything of the character of prætorium or citadel.

It is related that before the Conqueror entered London he directed a fortress to be built which should command the city. This, of course, was a temporary camp, and it was probably while he was at Westminster, or in the camp at Barking, that he studied the ground and selected as the site of his future citadel a point upon the eastern flank of the city defences, displacing for that purpose, we are told, a part of the Roman wall, including the two towers next to the Thames. Recent excavations have actually laid bare part of this wall a very few yards east of William’s tower.

William was crowned in 1066, and it was from Barking, immediately after the ceremony, that he directed the actual commencement of the works, which were no doubt at first a deep ditch and strong palisade; for the keep, probably the earliest work in masonry, appears not to have been begun till twelve or fourteen years later.

The new castle thus more than supplied the place of the removed works, for it could not only protect, but overawe the city, and, if necessary, cut off its trade and supplies by water.

Such was the origin of this grand old fortress, the chief and central part of which gives mass and character to the group, and has from its earliest times caused the whole to pass under the name of “The Tower.”

The new fortress was supported by two other considerable works within the city, Baynard’s Castle upon the Thames’ strand, built about the same time by Baynard, the castellan and standard-bearer of the city, and Montfitchet’s Castle, near it, built by a knight of that name. Later kings had “Tower Royal,” in Vintry Ward, where Stephen lodged, and to which the mother of Richard II. fled from the Tower in Wat Tyler’s rebellion. Edward II. also built a strong place near Blackfriars.

The Tower, though all save the keep is later, and most of it considerably later than the eleventh century, well supplements the original design. The area enclosed and the strength of the walls and gates are in keeping with the dimensions and impregnable character of the keep; and the circumscribing ditch, though unusually broad and deep, was by no means too secure a defence against a turbulent and notoriously brave body of citizens.

PLAN OF THE TOWER OF LONDON IN 1866.

REFERENCES

(From Lord De Ros’s Memorials of the Tower.)

The Tower, in its present form, is a fine example of a concentric castle, of mixed composition, but general harmony of design, and covering, with its circumscribing ditch, about twelve acres of ground.

Nearly in the centre, but now detached and alone, stands the keep, “La blanche Tour” of Edward III., the oldest and most stable part of the fortress. Around it is the inner ward, in plan generally four-sided, but with a salient on the north front, and contained within a wall strengthened by a gatehouse and twelve mural towers.

Encircling this is the outer ward, following the same general plan, and contained within a wall rising from, and forming the scarp of, the ditch. Upon it are bold drum bastions, at the angles of the north front; and the south, or Thames front, is protected by five mural towers, of which one covers the land and one the water gate, and two others are connected with posterns.

The ditch, which completely girdles the fortress, is divided from the river by a narrow strip of land used as a wharf, but also ingeniously contrived to cut off the water of the ditch from the tidal stream.

The space outside the ditch, forming the esplanade of the fortress, is known as Tower Hill. It was once divided by the City wall, which extended from the north to the edge of the ditch, having a postern at the junction, which still gives name to a row of houses, and to the east of which is Little Tower Hill. The ground covered by the Tower rises from the river, so that parts of the inner ward are 40 feet above the water, and the ground north of, and outside the ditch, is 8 feet to 10 feet higher. This disadvantage was neutralised by the breadth of the ditch, while the descent towards the south, or entrance side, was of material advantage in repelling an attack from that side. The object being to command the river and fill the ditch, the keep was placed as high as was consistent with these points.

It has been remarked by Sir F. Palgrave, that William, in settling the jurisdiction of his new fortress, respected, as far as possible, the limits of the City of London. Only the smaller half of the enclosure was within the line of the old wall; and, while the Tower liberties (if St. Katherine’s be included within them) extend some distance eastward, or into the county of Middlesex, on the west frontier, the authority of the constable ranges but a little way beyond the counterscarp of the ditch. The area of the liberties proper is about 26 acres, of which the western portion stands in Tower Ward and All-Hallows Barking parish, and the eastern portion in the county of Middlesex.