The Tower of London, (Vol. 1 of 2)

by Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower

ERRATUM.

The illustration at page 198 represents the Byward Tower, not Middle Tower.

The Tower of London
(From a Sketch by H. Colls.)

THE TOWER

CHAPTER I

THE BUILDINGS

Nothing has come down to us of any authentic value regarding ancient London until Tacitus writes of Londinium as a place celebrated for the numbers of its merchants and the confluence of traffic. In the days of the Roman occupation St Albans, then called Verolanium, was a far more important place than Roman Londinium; and, perhaps, it was Verolanium whereto Cæsar marched in his second descent on Britain in B.C. 54, and which he described as a place “protected by woods and marshes.” Such a description would equally apply to Londinium, and, for aught we can know to the contrary, the town Cæsar describes as being surrounded by woods and marshes may have been our capital.

To the north of Roman London stretched vast primeval forests, and where St John’s Wood now stands, the wild boar roamed in trackless thickets. Marshes lay to the west and south, on the sites of Westminster and Southwark; a less likely place for the situation of a great capital, with the exception of St Petersburg, could not be found in Europe. On what is now Tower Hill stood a Celtic fortress, protected by the Thames on the south, and by forests and fens on the north. This fortress was admirably placed, protecting the approach from the seaward side of the river, and guarding against any attack from the land side. The Romans were evidently of this opinion, for after conquering the woad-stained Britons, they erected a fortalice, defended by strongly fortified walls, upon the same site.

This Roman fortress was the origin of the Tower of London.

Roman London, or rather Augusta, for so it was originally termed by the Romans, began at a fort named the Arx Palatina, overlooking the river a little to the south of Ludgate, a wall defended by towers, running in a south-easterly line along the river bank to another fort on the present site of the Tower, which was also named the Arx Palatina. Thence the wall took a northerly direction, reaching as far as the present Bishopsgate; it then turned due west to Cripplegate; then south by Aldersgate to Newgate, meeting the first wall at Ludgate. Roman London was indebted to the Emperor Constantine for these defences.[1]

Theodosius is supposed to have restored this wall in the reign of Valentinian, but we have no further records of any work upon it until A.D. 886, when Alfred the Great repaired it as a protection against the Danish invaders.[2]

The late Sir Walter Besant is my authority for saying “that there is a large piece of the Roman wall, extending 150 feet long, built over by stores and warehouses immediately north of the Tower, just where the old postern used to be, and where the wall abutted on the Tower.” It should be remembered, when judging of the circumference of the Roman wall, that London covered little more ground in those days than does Hyde Park at present: from Ludgate to the Tower the Roman wall extended only about a mile in length, and three and a half miles from the Tower to Blackfriars.

There are many fragments of this old Roman wall still above ground, and until 1763 a square Roman tower, built of alternate layers of large square stones with bands of red tiles, one of the three that guarded the wall, was still standing in Houndsditch. In 1857 a portion of the Roman wall was discovered near Aldermanbury postern, whilst a portion of a Roman bastion is still to be seen at St Giles’s Church, Cripplegate; another fragment being visible in a street called London Wall Street. There are more Roman remains at the Old Bailey and near George Street, Tower Hill. Fragments are also visible near Falcon Lane, Bush Lane, Scott’s Yard in Cornhill, and in underground warehouses and cellars near the Tower. In the Minories there are yet more remains of this ancient Roman wall. In Thames Street, oaken piles, which were the foundation of the wall, have been discovered. They supported a layer of chalk and stone courses, upon which rested large slabs of sandstone cemented with a mixture of lime, sand, and powdered tiles. The upper part of the wall was coated with flint, and this again was strengthened by rows of tiles.

The most interesting of these remains, however, is in the Tower itself—a fragment of the Roman fort or Arx Palatina (the place of strength), which was laid bare some few years ago when some buildings abutting on the White Tower were removed. It is built of the same materials as the fragments of the Roman wall, and shows that William the Conqueror not only erected the most formidable fortress in his newly-conquered country upon the site chosen by the Romans, but that he also incorporated the remains of their handiwork in his building. Whether Alfred the Great restored the Arx Palatina as well as the wall we do not know, but even if the fort were ruined, the fragment now at the base of the White Tower would have shown the Conqueror the value and importance of its defensive position, protecting as it did the eastern end of the city, and guarding the seaward entrance of the Thames. William’s site, however, covered part of the land belonging to the ancient boundary of the Roman occupation, and to provide the necessary space he pulled down a large portion of the Roman wall between the spot where the White Tower now stands and the river front of the fortress.

In the days of our first Norman kings, a single square tower or keep, usually situated on a hill surrounded by an artificial ditch or moat, was considered sufficient protection. One might give a long list of such towers or keeps both in England and Normandy, for William the First, not content with overawing the Londoners with his great tower in their city, built others at Dover and at Exeter, at Nottingham and at York, at Lincoln and at Durham, at Cambridge and at Huntingdon. Under Duke Rollo and his immediate successors the Normans built their fortresses by the side of navigable rivers, on islands, or near the sea, since these fortresses were not merely destined as defences, but also for places of safety. They were, in fact, places of refuge for the people of the surrounding country, who fled to them with all their possessions, and particularly their live stock, at the approach of an enemy. By their situation, safety, if necessary, could be obtained by taking flight on the neighbouring river or sea.

In Normandy—at Fécamp, at Eu, at Bayeux, at Jumiége, and at Oisel, to name but a few of these Norman keeps—this custom obtained. At Rouen, as in London, the principal fortress built by the Norman duke stood by the riverside, and not on the hills at the back of the town. None of these places mentioned above were stronger or more imposing than the great Norman keep in London, known for centuries as the White Tower, receiving that title at first, probably from the whiteness of its stone, and in later times from the continued coatings of whitewash which it received. Of the many castles in Normandy and Touraine of the same period as the White Tower, that of Loches resembles it most nearly in size and form. Loches is now almost a ruin, as are most of the Conqueror’s castles, but the great White Tower remains intact despite the storms, sieges, and fires through which it has passed during eight centuries. It is still the Arx Palatina of London and of the British Empire.

Although in situation the Tower cannot compare with such grandly-placed castles as Dover or Bamborough, Conway or Carnarvon, or vie in beauty of scenery with Warwick or Windsor, it remains the most historic building in our land; not even the mausoleum fortress of Hadrian in old Rome can compete in interest with the Norman fortress—palace—and State prison of London; Edinburgh Castle alone approaches it as regards its influence on the history of the capital it defended, for the northern fortress was also the home of its national sovereigns for centuries, its country’s chief prison, the store-house of its regalia, and its city’s strong place of defence; and, like the Tower, it has been guarded from its foundation up to the present time without a break, by its country’s armed defenders.

Every part of the Tower of London is pregnant with history and tradition. The proudest names of England—Howard and Percy, Arundel and Beauchamp, Stafford and Devereux—gain added interest from their association with the Tower and its story. Above all, it is for ever honoured as having been the last home of Eliot, of Russell, and of Sidney; it has been sanctified by More and Fisher, “Martyrs,” as a writer on the Tower has well said, “for the ancient, as also was Anne Askew for the purer faith.” And to Anne Askew’s name I would add that of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, one of the first and noblest of English martyrs.

When William lay dying in the Priory of Saint Gervais, near Rouen, in the summer of 1087, the Great White Tower which he had built in London had been in existence for some ten years. Probably only that tower was then completed, with the great ballium wall between the Keep and the river. Stowe, the earliest English writer on antiquarian subjects, writing in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, has told us in his priceless “Survey of London,” that the White Tower was completed in 1078. Its architect, Bishop Gundulf of Rochester, was not consecrated until 1077, and was then occupied in building Rochester Cathedral and a portion of Rochester Castle; the keep, which still rears its ruined walls over Rochester and the Medway, was not built until a century later. In Mr G. J. Clarke’s work on “Mediæval Military Architecture”—a work as important to students of English architecture of the Middle Ages as is that of Viollet le Duc to French architecture—we are told that Gundulf died about the year 1108, at the good old age of eighty-four, in the reign of the first Henry. Possibly the Palace at the Tower and even the Wakefield Tower had been commenced by Gundulf, as well as some buildings of the inner ward, but this is uncertain. These buildings would include the great curtain wall extending from the Wakefield Tower to the Broad Arrow Tower, and the cross wall of the Wardrobe Gallery, and the building known as Coldharbour, these being the buildings which formed the nucleus of the palace of the Norman kings.

The Wardrobe, the Lanthorn, and Coldharbour Towers have perished; the Lanthorn Tower has been rebuilt. In 1091, according to Stowe, the White Tower was, “by tempest and wind sore shaken,” so much so that it had to be repaired by William Rufus and Henry I. In the same year that Rufus built the Great Hall at Westminster he surrounded the Tower with a wall, causing his subjects much discontent thereby, especially as he forced them to work at these defences.

Sir Walter Besant recommended—and no one spoke with higher authority on aught appertaining to old London and its history—any one who desires to make himself acquainted with the appearance of the Tower in the days of Queen Elizabeth, to study the plan drawn up by Haiward and Gascoigne in 1597, which they styled “A True and Exact Draught of the Tower Liberties.” In that plan it will be seen at a glance that the fortress, palace, armoury, arsenal, and State prison of England’s capital, had its principal entry towards the west—in fact, that the western approach was the only entrance by land, the eastern entrance, known as the Iron Gate, being but seldom used. Supposing that the visitor of Elizabeth’s day had passed through the no longer existing Bulwark Gate, he would next pass under another gate, called from its proximity to the menagerie of wild animals, the Lion Gate, which was connected by a walled causeway over the moat, about a hundred feet in width, with the Lion Tower, which has disappeared; from the Lion Gate, which has also been pulled down, the scarp would be reached.

Plan of the Tower in 1597
by Haiward and Gascoyne.

The Lion Tower, with its barbicans and tête-du-pont, had the honour of a moat to itself, but all this has disappeared, Lion Gate, tower, barbican, tête-du-pont, have all vanished with the lions and other wild beasts which were kept here from the days of the Norman kings until the year 1834, when they were removed to Regent’s Park and formed the nucleus of the Zoological Gardens.

Henry I. had kept some lions and leopards at his palace of Woodstock, and on the occasion of Frederic II. of Germany sending three leopards to Henry III., these animals were sent to the Tower. Besides lions and leopards, an elephant and a bear were also about that time in the Tower menagerie. In 1252 the Sheriffs of London were ordered to pay fourpence a day for the keep of the bear, and also to provide a muzzle and chain for Bruin while he caught fish in the Thames. During the reign of the three first Edwards, the lions and other animals had food given them to the value of sixpence a day, their keeper only receiving three half-pence per diem. One of the Plantagenet Court officials held the office, and was styled “The Master of the King’s Bears and Apes.” In old views of the Tower can be seen the circular pit or pen in which, down to the days of James I., bear-baiting took place—to watch this brutal “sport” being one of this not altogether admirable monarch’s favourite amusements.

In his account of a visit paid to the Tower in the reign of Elizabeth, the German traveller, Paul Hentzner, writes of the Royal menagerie as follows:—

“On coming out of the Tower we were led to a small house close by, where are kept variety of creatures—viz. three lionesses, one lion of great size, called Edward VI., from his having been born in that reign; a tyger; a lynx; a wolf excessively old; this is a very scarce animal in England, so that their sheep and cattle stray about in great numbers, free from any dangers, though without anybody to keep them; there is besides, a porcupine, and an eagle. All these creatures are kept in a remote place, fitted up for the purpose with wooden lattices at the Queen’s expense.”

Hentzner, who visited England as tutor to a young German nobleman, gives a vivid account of what was considered most noteworthy in London in the days of Elizabeth, and in this the Tower looms large. His Journal was translated into English from the German and published by Horace Walpole, who had it printed at Strawberry Hill. We shall meet with Hentzner again in the White Tower.

Early in the eighteenth century there were eleven lions in the Tower, and in the Freeholder Addison alludes to the Tower menagerie; later on, Dr Johnson would growlingly inquire of newly-arrived Scotchmen in the metropolis, “Have you seen the lions?” In the place where formerly lions roared and bears were baited, the ticket office and visitors’ refreshment rooms now stand. In France or Germany here would probably be an attractive restaurant or café; but in these matters we English are woefully behind our neighbours, and it would be as difficult to find an appetising luncheon in the Tower as it is to understand why the art of cooking is so neglected in our country.

Near here, in 1843, when the moat of the fortress was drained of its waters and cleared of its rubbish, many stone cannon shot were found, shot which had probably been used when the Yorkists besieged the Tower in 1460 and cannonaded it from the other side of the Thames. In Elizabeth’s day this portion of the fortress was named the Bulwark or the Spur-yard—the origin of the latter term is not known.

The Byward Tower.

The moat, some hundred feet wide at its widest, was formerly flooded with the waters of the Thames, and is now used as a parade and playground for the garrison. It dates back to the Norman Conquest, and was deepened by William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely in the reign of Richard I. Death was the penalty for bathing in its waters in the reign of Edward III.—a severe law, but one may hope that a sentence so severe for so apparently trivial an offence was not actually enforced; perhaps death was the result of some one having taken his bath in the Tower moat in the unsanitary days of Edward III. When the Duke of Wellington was Constable of the Tower, he had the moat filled up to its present level, and the river waters which had, daily, during eight centuries supplied it by their ebb and flow, ceased to encircle the old walls. Doubtless the fortress gained in healthiness by the change, but from a picturesque point of view the general effect of the building has been greatly lessened since the days when the old walls and bastions were reflected by the waters of the moat, nor can its towers and turrets appear so effective as when they were mirrored in surrounding water.

Four bridges with their causeways spanned the moat. To the west stood the Lion Gate bridge; a second was (and still is), that of the Middle Tower; the third faces the river at Traitor’s Gate under St Thomas’s Tower; and the fourth is that at the eastern extremity of the fortress, near to a dam which connected the tower above the Iron Gate with the tower formerly called Galleyman’s Tower, or “the tower leading to the Iron Gate.”

Middle Tower, the first by which the present visitor to the Tower enters the fortress, has been greatly modernised in its upper part. Since the destruction of the Lion Tower it has become the first gate of the Citadel, its name having been gained by its original position between the Lion and Byward Towers, to the latter of which it formed the outwork: it protects the western and landward approach to the fortress. Originally the Middle Tower was coated with Portland stone. It has a double portcullis, which can still be used if required. In front of this Tower, in mediæval days, stood a drawbridge, of which however, no trace remains, the moat now being spanned by a bridge of stone 130 feet in length and 20 feet in width at its narrowest part.

It was in front of this gateway that Elizabeth, on returning a Queen to the Tower, which she had left five years before a prisoner, alighted from her horse and kneeling on the ground returned thanks to God, “who had,” as Bishop Burnet writes in his “History of the Reformation,” “delivered her from a danger so imminent; and for an escape as miraculous as that of David.” To the right of the Middle Tower a road leads to Tower Wharf, from whence one of the most striking views in the whole of London is seen. Before the spectator stretches the famous “Pool,” that wide space of ever-shifting water on which rides all the shipping of the mighty river. It is a view which combines past and present; all the stir, the toil and traffic of the Thames lies before one, and for background rise the pinnacles, towers, and embattled walls of the grim old fortress, looking down on the ever-changing but time-defying stream.

Returning to the Middle Tower, and passing along the causeway which spans the moat, the Byward Tower is reached. The Byward Tower forms the gatehouse of the Outer Ward of the Tower, and dates back to the reign of Richard II. In form this tower is rectangular, it has three floors, and rejoices in a portcullis which, like that of the Middle Tower, could still be worked. In the time of Henry VIII. the Byward Tower was known by the name of the Warding Gate. Upon the right-hand side of the entrance there is a fine vaulted chamber, some 15 feet in size, which is supposed to have been used as an oratory during the Middle Ages. It is now occupied by the Warders of the Tower, and is called the Warders’ Parlour; with its loopholed windows and ancient stone fireplace, it is one of the best preserved interior portions of the fortress. There is a corresponding chamber on the opposite side of the gateway. Attached to the Byward Tower, on its south-eastern side, is a low tower intended to protect the postern bridge which here crosses the moat towards the river side. It has an old oak door, half hidden by a sentry box, over which is a vaulted roof dating from the reign of Richard II., and this, with the narrow tortuous passage, forms a picturesque corner of the Tower buildings.

Postern Gate in the Byward Tower.

To mention the Warders of the Tower necessitates something more than a passing allusion to that most worthy body of veterans, since the Warders of the Tower of London belong to the most interesting of the old fortress’s institutions. Yeomen-Warders is the proper designation of the forty or so old soldiers who guard the Tower, who show and describe its different parts to visitors, and whose civility and patience are matters for the highest encomium. Originally these guardians were employed by the Lieutenant of the Tower to guard the prisoners committed to the State prison under his charge. But in the reign of Edward VI. the Duke of Somerset, after his liberation from the Tower, caused those warders who had had charge of his person during his imprisonment to be appointed, as a reward for their attention, extra Yeomen of the Guard. And from that period dates, with some modifications, the costume still worn by the Tower Yeomen. The Warders of the Tower are all picked men, and have all been appointed to their posts for good service in the Army. In the old days when the State trials were held at Westminster Hall the “Gentleman-Gaoler”—as that Warder was named whose affair it was to escort and guard the State prisoner to and from his trial, and who carried the processional axe (still kept in the Queen’s House) before the prisoner with the edge turned away from him on the journey to Westminster, and almost always with its edge towards him as he returned, as a sign that he was condemned to die—was the principal of the Tower Warders. The office is still maintained, inasmuch as he takes the front place on State occasions of ceremony, when the old axe is taken from its honoured repose in the Lieutenant’s study in the Queen’s House.

The Warders of the Tower must not, however, be confounded with the Yeomen of the Guard, the latter of whom are more usually known by the name of Beefeaters, and who, in their picturesque and striking uniform, make so effective a display on State occasions, such as the Levées at St James’s Palace, and State balls and concerts at Buckingham Palace. Whether the designation “Beefeater” originated from a supposed, but non-existent French word “buffetier” or not is a matter of no importance; but what is interesting is the fact that this body of men, with the exception of the Pope’s Swiss bodyguard, are the only set of attendants belonging to a European Court who retain a costume similar to that worn by their predecessors over three centuries ago.

Passing under the Byward Tower the Inner Ward is reached, into which entrance was gained from the river by Traitor’s Gate, the steps to that famous portal running below St Thomas’s Tower. Formerly cross walls, guarded with strong gates, defended the Inner Ward, but these have long since disappeared, together with the grated walls which shut in the passage across the Ward from Traitor’s Gate to the Bloody Tower.

As recently as the year 1867 this portion of the Inner Ward was covered with storehouses, engine-rooms and the lodgings of the warders, and most of these buildings, according to Lord de Ros, were in a state of total dilapidation, “the result of many years of neglect on the part of the former Board of Ordnance.” Since that time a great improvement has been made here, as well as in other parts of the fortress: of these improvements a list is given in the Appendix.

Yeoman Porter of the Tower.

Bounded by the Bloody and St Thomas’s Towers ran a narrow street called Mint Street, from the adjoining building occupied by the offices of the Mint, which consisted of a row of mean houses that hid and defaced the fine old Ballium wall of the fortress. Regarding this Ballium wall, Lord de Ros, in his account of the Tower, explains the word “Ballium” as “a military term,” but wishing for some further knowledge as to the meaning of the word, I referred to my learned friend Mr W. Peregrine Propert of St David’s, who informed me that it was probably derived from the French term “bailler,” meaning “to deliver possession, to lease, to hold, keep, contain.” The Latin form Ballium would accordingly mean something that is held, contained, or enclosed. Castles in ancient times were usually enclosed by several circuits of walls, fences, or ramparts. Sometimes there was a ditch or moat built outside these defences, as was the case in the Tower of London. The space between these walls was called the “Ballium.” On the site of the prison of Newgate stood a Roman fortress which was no doubt surrounded by ramparts, and the space so defended has retained its old appellation Ballium in the present term Old Bailey. “It is quite natural,” adds Mr Propert, “to suppose that if one wall disappeared the remaining wall would be called the ballium popularly: in the same manner a wall in the Tower of London might be called a Ballium, though not correctly according to its etymology.”

The Ballium wall at its highest is some forty feet high, and dates probably as far back as the Conquest; it is, therefore, one of the most ancient parts of the Tower, and coeval with the White Tower. It commences at the Main Gate of the outer rampart at the Bell Tower, and forms the angle of the Queen’s or Governor’s House, whence it runs for some fifty yards to the north-west until it joins the Beauchamp Tower: this tower forms a bastion near the centre of the Ballium wall. To the right the restored Tower of St Thomas overlaps the Traitor’s Gate. This tower dates back to the reign of Henry VIII., and was entirely rebuilt in 1866 by Salvin, only a portion of the interior retaining the walls of the original building.

Among a crowd of dingy wine-shops, offices, storehouses, and buildings which, according to good authority, were mostly “in a condition of ruin and dilapidation,” stood the old Mint, of which some account must here be given:

In the twenty-first annual account of the Deputy Master of the Mint for the year 1890 is the following account of the Mint when it was still within the Tower walls:—

“Among the old records of the Mint a discoloured parchment has been discovered, which is described as ‘An exact survey of the ground plot or plan of His Majesty’s Office of the Mint in the Tower of London.’ It bears the date February 26, 1700, and is of special interest as having presumably been prepared by order of Sir Isaac Newton, who was appointed Master of the Mint in 1699, having previously held the office of Warden.... The Mint buildings were situated between the rampart, which is bounded by the moat, and the inner ward or ballium of the fortress, which they entirely surrounded, except on the river frontage.... There are ample data as to the nature of the machinery and appliances which filled the various workrooms at the time when the plan was prepared. The more important machinery would be the rolling mills. The rolling mills were drawn by horsepower, and the rolls were of steel and of small dimensions. The coining presses were screw presses, and must have been the same as were introduced by Blondeau in 1661, under the direction of Sir W. Parkhurst and Sir Anthony St Ledger, Wardens of the Mint, at a cost of £1400. Blondeau, who greatly improved the system of coining, did not, however, invent the screw press, as Cellini described it accurately in 1568.”

The Wakefield and Bloody Towers.

In 1698 Sir Isaac Newton writes from the “Mint Office, October 22nd,” as follows:—“Sir, Pray let Mr James Roettier have the use of the great Crown Press in the Long Press Room for coyning of the Medalls, and let some person whom you can confide in, attend to see that Mr Roettier make no other use of the said press room than for coyning of medalls.—To Mr John Braint, Provost of the Moniers.”

Sir Isaac was evidently suspicious of the uses that Roettier might make of the Crown press, and not overconfident of the honesty of the old Dutch medallist. We shall have more to say regarding Roettier when describing the Tower under the Stuart king’s Restoration.

It is uncertain if Sir Isaac Newton occupied the house of the Master of the Mint in the Tower, although it is recorded in the Conduit MSS. that Halley once dined with Sir Isaac at the Mint. At the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, Newton had a house in Jermyn Street, St James’s. The lodgings in the Tower of the Master of the Mint were immediately to the north of the Byward Tower, whilst those of the Warden were to the left of the Brass Mount, on the north of the Jewel or Martin Tower.

The debasement of the coin of the realm, especially during the reigns of the Tudor Sovereigns, caused great loss to the State, the matter becoming so serious that Latimer denounced this criminal practice from St Paul’s Cross, Sir John Yorke being then Master of the Tower Mint. In 1550–51 it is recorded that there was “great loss, 4000 weight of silver, by treason of Englishmen, which he (Yorke) bought for provision for the minters. Also Judd, 1500; also Gresham, 500; so that the whole came to 4000 pound.” There is a letter to the Treasurer, dated 22nd August 1550, ordering him “to waie and cause to be molten downe into wedges all such crosses, images, and church and chapelle plate of Gould as remains in the Towere.” This letter was accompanied by a warrant signed by Henry VIII. for “VIJM pounds appointed to be delivered to Sir John Yorke for such purposes as his Lordship knoweth.” This act of spoliation of all the Church treasure in the Tower by the rapacious Henry, accounts for none of the plate in the Chapel of St Peter’s dating further back than the reign of Charles I.

The famous Traitor’s Gate is perhaps the most historic plot of ground in England, for here some of the noblest of our race have played the last scene but one of their lives. More tragic pathos attaches to this black water-gate than to the Bridge of Sighs in Venice; it is more deeply dyed with gloom than the glacis of Avignon, the dungeons of St Angelo, or the Austrian Spilberg. But a few steps had to be traversed by the prisoners, when landed at these steps, before they entered the Bloody Tower on the opposite side of the Ward, not to pass thence until the day of their execution. The Traitor’s Gate was the principal of the Barbicans or water-gates of the fortress; it commanded the passage between the Thames and the moat. The stone arch which spans Traitor’s Gate springs from two octagonal piers, and is 61 feet across. On the old steps, that can still be traced below the modern stone stairs by which they are overlaid, many an illustrious victim landed from the barge, in which the prisoners of State were generally taken to and from their trial at Westminster.

Within one of the circular turrets over the Gate, on the south-east, are the remains of an oratory, the piscina being still visible in the wall. It was before this tower, on the night of St George’s Day 1240, that the gateway with the adjacent wall of St Thomas’s Tower suddenly fell to the ground. In the following year, on the same anniversary, the newly-built tower and gate again fell prone. That such a catastrophe should occur twice on the night of the 23rd of April was attributed by the Londoners to supernatural causes; and rumour spread that on that very night (Mathew Paris is the authority) the spectre of an Archbishop, crozier in hand, had appeared to one of the Tower priests whilst standing near St Thomas’s Tower. After gazing sternly at the priest and on the walls of the tower then rebuilding, the spectre struck the stones with his crozier, exclaiming, “Why build ye these?” and down fell the newly-erected tower and wall. The spectre was supposed to be St Thomas of Canterbury, from whom the tower took its name, but after the building had arisen for the third time, the restorer has been the only person who has meddled with them.

North, or inside, view of Traitor’s Gate.
being the principal entrance of the Tower of London, from the River, and through which state prisoners of rank and dignity were formerly conveyed to the Tower.

A passage connected this tower with the Wakefield Tower, on the right of the Bloody Tower, and was restored by Salvin, to enable the Keeper of the Regalia, who has his quarters in St Thomas’s Tower, to pass into the Wakefield Tower, where the jewels are kept, without leaving the building.

The Wakefield Tower and its companion, the Bloody Tower, form one block of buildings. According to recent authorities this tower is principally the work of the reigns of Stephen and of Henry III. Formerly it was called the Record or Hall Tower, and for many centuries contained the documents relating to the fortress, now kept in the Record Office in Chancery Lane. Its second name of Hall Tower was probably given to it because of its proximity to the great hall of the Palace, which was destroyed by Cromwell, where the courts of justice met in the Middle Ages. Its present name is no doubt derived from the prisoners who were taken at the battle of Wakefield in December 1460, when the Lancastrians, led by Warwick, defeated the Yorkists. The unhappy Yorkists were interned in a vaulted chamber in the basement of the tower; and here also another civil war, that of 1745, brought a shoal of Scottish prisoners into this dismal dungeon when the mortality amongst them was terrible. Salvin restored the tower, without and within, in 1867. Some frescoes on the walls of the rooms on the first floor could still be traced up to that time, but nothing of these most interesting relics of early English art have been left by the restorers.

The dungeon in the basement, where the Yorkist and Jacobite soldiers were placed at an interval of nearly three centuries, is octagonal in form, 23 feet in width, by 10 feet high. Its walls are 13 feet in thickness, the present beautiful vaulted stone roof being a copy of the old one. The Government of George II. behaved to the poor Highlanders brought here after Culloden, much as did the Indian perpetrators of the Black Hole of Calcutta tragedy, for between sixty and seventy prisoners were crammed into this single chamber. It is little wonder that half of them speedily died; the survivors were transported as slaves to the West Indies. The Regalia is kept in the upper chamber of this tower and is probably the greatest attraction to the majority of the visitors to the Tower of London, for gewgaws always attract a crowd.[3]

Of the half-dozen crowns, with the sceptres and orbs, and other State ornaments kept in this chamber, one or two articles only, date back earlier than the days of Charles II. The oldest of these is a silver-gilt “anointing spoon” which belonged to the Ampulla or Golden Eagle, and was used to anoint the sovereign with the holy oil at his or her coronation; a salt-cellar which is said to have belonged to Queen Elizabeth, and which is certainly a handsome specimen of chased silver of the Renaissance period. The coronation spoon is of pure gold, and has four pearls placed in the broadest part of the handle, on which also are remains of some enamelling. An arabesque is engraved on the bowl; a ridge runs down the centre forming two depressions in the metal, and into these hollows the Archbishop dipped his finger before anointing the sovereign. The Ampulla, the vessel which contained the oil, is also fashioned in gold, in the shape of an eagle, the head, which served as a lid, being loose. The Imperial crown, a terrible thing in form, although covered with handsome jewels, was entirely reconstructed for George IV. at his coronation, and is worthy of that monarch’s taste.

The Jewel House

Doorway of the Jewel House

In the reign of Henry VIII. the Keeper of these jewels was for a time Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, who received fifty pounds a year for the office, besides many perquisites connected with the charge. In 1623, Charles I., starting with the Duke of Buckingham on his quixotic journey to Spain, is said to have carried with him jewels belonging to the Crown to the value of sixty thousand pounds.

During the Commonwealth the Crown was broken up and the Crown jewels dispersed. At the Restoration, Sir Gilbert Talbot was the Keeper of the Jewels, and it was then, for the first time, that the public were allowed to see the Regalia. Whilst Talbot was Keeper and Edwards sub-Keeper, Blood’s almost successful attempt to carry off the Crown occurred. Far more interesting than the Regalia is the chamber in which it is placed. It is octagonal in shape, 30 feet in diameter, with bays opened into the walls. The beautiful carved ceiling is a modern copy of the original. In the bay on the north-eastern side are two deep recesses, that under an archway being the original entrance into the chamber and connecting it with the palace; it is now walled up. The recess to the south-east was formerly an oratory, and is mentioned in the Tower records in the year 1238.

Tradition points to this room as being the scene of the murder of Henry VI. by Richard III., who is supposed to have entered through the passage from the Palace, and finding Henry praying in the oratory stabbed him to death, “punching his anointed body full of deadly holes,” as Shakespeare puts it in “Henry VI.”

Before describing the Inner Ward, which is entered after passing under the Bloody Tower, of which the black portcullis still shows its jagged teeth, one would do well to turn and look back from under the curiously groined roof of the old gateway, with lions’ heads carved in the spandrels, towards Traitor’s Gate. This is perhaps the most suggestive view of any within the Tower, the least changed, and full of historical reminiscences. Through this archway have passed all the State prisoners that the old fortress has drawn into its grim maw—prelates, queens, and princes, statesmen, judges, courtiers, and soldiers of all degrees—the patriot willing to lay down his life for the “old cause,” as Algernon Sidney called his policy—and the favourite of some fickle royal master, thrown aside and allowed to perish by a Henry, an Elizabeth, or a Charles. For five centuries this old Tower has seen pass beneath its black walls many who have helped to make the history of our race; this pathway has been their Via Crucis.

A very old tradition, dating certainly as far back as the reign of Elizabeth, gives the epithet of “bloody” to this tower. It has always been known as the place where the sons of Edward IV. were murdered by their uncle Richard in 1483. Although there is no historical evidence to prove that this was the scene of that event, local tradition in a place like the Tower is not a factor to be despised, for the story of the crime and its locale cannot have been handed down at an interval of less than a hundred years from the time of the occurrence. Until the reign of Elizabeth the Bloody Tower was called the Garden Tower, from a garden which lay on its western side, belonging to the Constable’s House or Lodging, to give its old style, the building now known as the King’s or Governor’s House; this garden has long ceased to exist.

The Bloody Tower.
looking towards Traitor’s Gate.

The Bloody Tower is a building of three storeys, with an elevation of 47 feet. Worthy of notice is the portcullis which, like that of the Byward Tower, is still in working order: these two are said to be the only remaining portcullises in England still capable of being used. Mrs Hutchinson, the wife of the Parliamentary Colonel, refers to this portcullis. She shared her husband’s imprisonment here in 1663, “in a room,” she writes, “where it was said the two young princes, Edward V. and his brother, were murdered; the room that led to it was a great dark room with no window, where the portcullis to one of the inner gates was drawn up and let down.” Among other prisoners who have lingered in the Bloody Tower were Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, Jane Grey’s father-in-law, Archbishop Cranmer, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Thomas Overbury, who was slowly poisoned. It was from the window over the gateway on the north side that Archbishop Laud, himself a prisoner, gave Strafford his supreme blessing as the great Earl was led out to die; and in this tower the brutal Judge Jeffreys died of delirium caused by drink and despair. The only prisoner here now is a small bird whose cage hangs from out a window of this gloomy gaol.

Of all the illustrious prisoners who have been immured here Sir Walter Raleigh is the most interesting. The steps which lead to the first floor of the prison tower open on an arched door, through which he must often have passed; they are as old as the Tower itself, which dates back to Richard III. or Richard II. In the Elizabethan survey of the Tower a walled garden is shown on the plan, facing the north. This was the garden which helped to soften the long imprisonment passed by Sir Walter, and here he whiled away many of the weary hours of his long captivity tending his flowers, or distilling essences in a little garden house which he had built himself. These occupations and the composition of his huge fragment, the famous “History of the World,” which he wrote in the Tower, must have been Raleigh’s greatest consolations during the fourteen long years he passed in the fortress. Raleigh also had the company of his family during one period of his imprisonment, and he was also allowed to have some of the natives he had brought back from Guiana to attend upon him. As the years of his imprisonment increased so did his troubles, and he suffered cruelly from rheumatism and palsy whilst in the Bloody Tower, and in 1606 it was found necessary, if his life was to be preserved, to change his prison. For Raleigh’s memory, among other reasons, the interior of the Bloody Tower is well worth visiting, although the rooms have been modernised. They are now occupied by one of the warders and his family. One chamber is pointed out as that in which the little York princes were smothered. This room has been divided into two, but there is nothing to show that the walls and the ceiling are not the same as those which were there when the murderers entered, having presumably passed through a window at the end of a passage which opens out on to the terraced wall overlooking the river.

Within the Inner Ward, by the side of the Wakefield Tower, stood, until the summer of 1899, an ugly building called the Main Guard, and it is in front of this building that the ceremony of receiving the Tower keys takes place nightly. Every evening just before midnight the Chief Warder and the Yeoman Porter meet together and proceed to the main guard-room. The Yeoman Porter carries in his hand his bunch of great keys, and on arriving at the guard-room he asks for “The escort of the keys.” This escort consists of a Beefeater (a sergeant) and six private soldiers. The sergeant carries a lantern, and the whole party then proceeds to the outer gate, where the soldiers assist the Yeoman Porter to close it. The latter then takes his keys and locks the gate, after which the procession is reformed for the return. As the party passes the sentinels on its way back, the latter challenges it with, “Who goes there?” The Yeoman Porter makes answer “The keys!” To this the sentry calls out “Advance King Edward’s Keys!” and the escort proceeds onward to the Main Guard. When this is reached the same ceremony is gone through, at the conclusion of which the officer of the guard and the escort salute the keys by presenting arms, after which the Yeoman Porter cries “God preserve King Edward!” The keys are then carried by the same guardian to the King’s House, or, as it is sometimes called, the Governor’s House, and placed for the night in the Constable’s office. Probably few know that, with the exception of the Sovereign and the Constable of the Tower, the password of the fortress is known only to the Lord Mayor of London, the word being sent to the Mansion House, quarterly, signed by the monarch. This is a survival of an ancient custom.

Groining in Ceiling of the Bloody Tower.

In early days a building, with towers attached, stood between the Main Guard and the White Tower, which is called in the old plans of the fortress “Cold or Cole Harbour.” When in 1899 the Main Guard was pulled down the old wall of Cold Harbour was laid bare, and at the same time a well with a stone lining to it, and a subterranean passage were discovered. The subterranean passage ran to the east of the Wakefield Tower and opened out towards the river front at the eastern side of St Thomas’s Tower, at a depth of five feet below the actual surface of the ground; it was six feet high, and so narrow that only one person could pass along it.

In Gascoyne’s plan of the Tower, Cold Harbour is shown with two tall circular towers, with a gateway between them, and stands at the south-western side of the White Tower. But as far back as the reign of James II. this building had disappeared. The origin of the name “Cold Harbour or Cole Harbour” has been a puzzle to antiquarians. The name is found in many localities throughout the south of England, and is always found in places near the Roman Road, a circumstance which has given the possible derivation of the name from Collis Arboris or Colles Arborum. And the site of Cold Harbour in the Tower might, with every probability, have been a wooded knoll or hillock by the side of the river when the Romans ruled in Britain. That Cold Harbour, or rather its two towers, were of some height is shown by the complaint made in 1572 against the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Owen Hopton, for allowing his prisoners to meet and walk on the “leads of Cole Harbour.” About the same time Lord Southampton, Shakespeare’s friend, when a prisoner in the Tower, was once seen “leaping upon the tower, his wife being on the opposite side of the ditch,” or the moat as we should call it.

To the left, and facing the Main Guard, lies the Tower Green, known also as the Parade. It has buildings upon its three sides. On the southern side the King’s House,[4] formerly called the Lieutenant’s Lodging, with its old gables, is a conspicuous feature. This building is carried on to the western side of the Green by a row of houses whose fronts have been modernised out of all semblance to their respectable antiquity; the northern end of the Green is closed by the walls of the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Homely as is the appearance of the King’s House, it is here that, should the reigning monarch of England ever return to lodge in the fortress, he or she would dwell, for it is the largest of the dwelling-houses within the Tower since the old Palace was pulled down. To those who have had the privilege of being taken over this house by its present occupier, General George Milman, the memory of its quaint old rooms, some panelled with wainscotting, and all made interesting by a collection of prints, and views, and portraits of places and people connected with the history of the fortress, will be a lasting and a pleasant one. No worthier guardian has held the honoured post of Lieutenant of the Tower, or taken a deeper interest in the venerable monument over which his Sovereign placed him, than the present occupant of the post.

The Lieutenant of the Tower ranks next to the Constable of the fortress. In the reign of Richard II. the Lieutenant received twenty pounds a year, and was entitled to the following perquisites. From every prisoner committed to the Tower having property of a hundred marks a year he received, “for the sute of his yrons” forty shillings, and from poorer or richer prisoners in proportion. From every galley coming up the river he received a “roundlett of wine” and of “daynties a certain quantity.” In the time of Elizabeth the Lieutenant received two hundred marks a year; in the eighteenth century this sum was increased to seven hundred pounds a year, besides valuable perquisites. The office of Constable of the Tower ranks high amongst military honours. Its roll of names include, since the death of the Iron Duke in 1852, those of Lord Combermere, Sir John Burgoyne, Sir Fenwick Williams, Lord Napier of Magdala, and Sir Daniel Lysons.

With its many gables, the old flagged court before it, bordered by sycamores, the King’s House forms a pleasing contrast to the blackened walls and towers which are round about it. The building looks a place of ancient peace, and seems rather to be a portion of some venerable college than of a mediæval fortress. The Green, formerly divided into three portions, of which one was a garden, the second a parade ground, and the third (that nearest to St Peter’s Chapel) a burying-ground, is now a single space in which seats are placed for the weary sightseer. It is a pleasant place wherein to pass a few moments day-dreaming on the scene around, and its strange contrast between the past and the present. On the ground floor of the King’s House is kept that interesting relic of the Tower and its story, the processional axe. This is the famous weapon which was carried to and from State trials by the Gentleman Warder. The axe’s head is peculiar in form, 1 foot 8 inches high by 10 inches wide, and is fastened into a wooden handle 5 feet 4 inches long. The handle is ornamented by four rows of burnished brass nails running perpendicularly down the sides, giving the weapon a strong resemblance to the decorated boat-hooks used in Venice for holding the gondolas at the landing-stages.

In the photograph which, by the kindness of General Milman, I was permitted to have taken of the axe, the background is formed by the masonry of the Bloody Tower, which has the appearance of a grisly pile of human skulls, a not inappropriate circumstance. Although the processional axe was only used as an emblem of law and justice, it is closely connected with many a Tower tragedy. It is not known when this axe was first used in those solemn processions when it preceded the prisoner to and from trial, nor is its age certain. It was last used at the State trials of the Jacobite lords in the years 1746 and 1747. It is now kept in the study of the Lieutenant of the Tower, whence it is only removed on such State occasions as the installation of a new Constable.

On the first floor of the King’s House, overlooking the Thames, is the Council Room in which Guy Fawkes was examined before Cecil and the Council of State. It was on this occasion that Cecil wrote to James I. that Guy Fawkes “was no more dismayed than if he were taken for a poor robbery in the highway.” Fawkes was not, as is sometimes stated, tortured in this room, for torture was only applied in the dungeons below the White Tower, which fact should disprove the legend that the cries of the tortured conspirator are heard on stormy nights proceeding from the Council Chamber. But there is another legend connected with this part of the Tower, to the effect that the shadow of an axe is sometimes seen spreading its form on Tower Green, and appearing on the walls of the White Tower. Indeed, a likelier or a more proper place for ghostly visitations of all kinds than the Tower can hardly be found anywhere in the world, if it be true that ghosts “do walk.” For this reason it is disappointing that there are so few legends of apparitions to chronicle, and of these few the following have the best authentication. In Notes and Queries for September 1860, some letters appeared relating to Tower ghosts, and amongst them Mr E. Le Swifte (the same individual, I believe, who so courageously saved the Regalia during the great fire in the Tower in 1841, when the Armoury was destroyed) writes an account of a ghostly visitant which appeared to his wife and himself in the Martin Tower, where the Regalia, of which he had charge, were then placed. Swifte was appointed to the post of Keeper of the Crown Jewels in 1814, which he held until 1852, living with his family in the Martin Tower. One evening in the month of October 1817, whilst at supper, his little son and his wife’s sister were startled at seeing an apparition, “like a glass tube” of the thickness of Mrs Swifte’s arm, which hovered between the ceiling and the supper table. It seemed to contain, adds Swifte, “a clear fluid.” This spectral shape appeared for a few moments, causing the family the greatest alarm. Shortly afterwards, one of the sentinels outside the Martin Tower saw a “huge bear issuing from underneath the door of the Tower.” The man fell down in a swoon and was taken to the guard-house room. The poor fellow actually died of the fright.

The Council Chamber in the Governor’s House.

Above the chimney-piece of the Council Chamber is a life-size coloured alto-relievo head of James the First; between this and the window, on the same wall, is a highly ornate stone tablet in the style of an altar tomb of the period, adorned with a row of heraldic shields bearing the coat-of-arms of the members of the Council who examined Guy Fawkes, amongst whom are those of Sir Edward Coke, the Attorney-General, and of Sir William Wade or Waad, the Lieutenant of the Tower, by whom the tablet was erected in honour of King James. Wade was the Lieutenant who was so cordially disliked by Sir Walter Raleigh, who called him “that beast Waad.” Below the shields is a fulsome inscription in English, Latin, and Hebrew, describing the Gunpowder Plot and its discovery.

Adjoining the Council Chamber is the room from which Lady Nithsdale succeeded in helping her husband to escape from the Tower, where he had been in prison for the part he had taken in the rebellion of 1715. The escape, which is described in the chapter dealing with the Tower under the Georges, was effected on the day before that on which Lord Nithsdale was to be executed. The unfortunate Duke of Monmouth was a prisoner in this building in 1685, between his capture after the Battle of Sedgemoor and his death on Tower Hill. Here also, during the days when the Stuarts reigned, and even earlier, it was customary to send to the care of the Lieutenant those prisoners of State whose position and importance made it desirable that they should be under the eye of the chief officer in the fortress, who was made personally responsible for their safe keeping. To this class of prisoner belonged Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, and mother of Henry Darnley. In an upper chamber of the King’s House is an inscription on a stone let into the wall above the fireplace, on which it is written that the Countess was “Commyedede prysner to this Lodgynge for the marege of her sonne, my Lord Henry Darnle and the Queene of Scotlande,” a list of servants “that doe wayte upon her noble grace in thys place” is also given upon the stone. This unlucky lady was a prisoner in 1565 for no fault, save that she was the mother of Queen Mary of Scotland’s husband. After passing many years in captivity, her cousin Elizabeth allowed her, after her release from the Tower, to die in poverty. Lady Lennox is commemorated by a stately monument in Henry the Seventh’s chapel in Westminster Abbey, for Elizabeth, with that strange inconsistency for which she was remarkable, after imprisoning the poor lady, and allowing her to die in misery after her release, erected a costly tomb to her memory. It was, indeed, a case of being asked for bread and according a stone.

At the south-western corner of the King’s House is the Bell Tower, a passage leading into it from the first floor of that building. A bell which formerly hung in a wooden turret on this tower gave it its name—the turret still remains, but the bell is kept in the upper storey. In the Tower regulations of 1607 it is ordered that: “When the Tower bell doth ring at nights for the shutting in of the gates, all the prisoners, with their servants, are to withdraw themselves into their chambers, and not to goe forth that night.” This bell was also the alarm bell of the fortress.

Prison in the Governor’s House.

The Bell Tower, which dates from the time of Richard I. or Henry III., is an irregular octagon, being 60 feet in height and 30 in diameter. The lower portion is of solid masonry, the walls varying from 9 to 13 feet in thickness. There are only two floors or storeys in the Tower, the lower with a fine vaulted ceiling. The room in the upper storey is a circular chamber, 18 feet across, with walls 8 feet in thickness. This prison is reached by a narrow staircase from the King’s House, and is lighted by four windows. Bishop Fisher was imprisoned in the upper chamber in the reign of Henry VIII., Sir Thomas More being confined in the one below. Both were harshly treated, and the poor old bishop suffered terribly from the cold. In the lower chamber, where More passed many solitary hours, even debarred from the consolation of his books, there now stands a large model of the Tower. Near the door of the upper prison a much defaced inscription can be seen on the wall, cut by the Bishop of Ross, who was a prisoner here in the time of Elizabeth. Felton, the murderer of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, is also believed to have been a prisoner in the Bell Tower.

Between the King’s House and the Beauchamp Tower, and facing Tower Green, is a row of modernised houses occupied by the Yeomen of the Guard, the Yeoman Jailor, and other officials connected with the fortress. All these houses have been refaced, and one regrets the bad taste which, in former years, allowed every appearance of age to be ruthlessly swept away from these buildings; and this is a regret that is ever present when visiting the Tower. The most glaring instance is the Beauchamp Tower, which, next to the White Tower, would have been the most interesting of the many interesting buildings here, had it not undergone what architects call “a thorough restoration” half-a-century ago. But the interior walls bear the record of many notable captives who, while waiting their fate, carved their name, their escutcheon, or some pious prayer upon the stones. Nearly all the most important prisoners of State during the reigns of the Tudors were imprisoned here, as the walls of the large prison room on the first floor still show. They are literally covered with inscriptions and devices. Some of these, however, have been brought from other places in the fortress, and therefore do not properly belong to the Beauchamp Tower, which is to be regretted, since they lose their interest by being removed from their original sites. Outwardly the Beauchamp Tower has now as modern an appearance as either the Norman or Winchester Towers at Windsor—spick, span, and spruce looking, more like a modern imitation of some mediæval tower than the actuality; the glamour of the old walls has been entirely destroyed.

For many years the prison room on the first floor of the Beauchamp Tower was the mess room for the officers of the garrison, and General Milman remembers dining there frequently when on duty at the Tower, the walls and inscriptions being covered by cupboards and furniture.

This tower takes its name from Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who was confined here in 1397. It was also known by the name of the Cobham Tower, from Lord Cobham and his sons having been imprisoned in it in Queen Mary’s reign for the part they had taken in Wyatt’s rebellion. The tower forms a semicircle and has three floors, the well staircase by which it is entered from the Green communicating with each floor and rising to the roof, which is battlemented. The large window facing the Green is modern, dating from the “restoration” of the building in 1854 by Salvin, but the cross window is of the time of Edward III., and is contemporary with the original structure. The principal prison chamber was the one on the second floor, and this contains the most noteworthy inscriptions. Close to the entrance door the name “Marmaduke Neville” is cut in the wall: this Neville is believed to have been imprisoned here in the reign of Elizabeth for having plotted for Queen Mary of Scotland. On the right of Neville’s signature appears the name of “Peverel,” with an elaborate device of a crucifix with a bleeding heart in the centre, and the Peverel shield. Nothing is known regarding this Peverel, but one sees the name with interest, associated as it is with Sir Walter Scott’s romance. Sir Walter made a careful study of this inscription, and the picturesque name doubtless attracted him and led to its forming part of the title of one of his immortal novels. Within the prison room on the ground floor, the first name of historical importance to arrest attention is that of Robert Dudley, carved on the left-hand side of the entrance. This sign manual of Elizabeth’s favourite, the unscrupulous Earl of Leicester, was probably cut by him when he was in this tower in 1554. Four of his brothers were also imprisoned with him, all of whom were released on Mary’s accession to the throne. In the prison chamber on the floor above there is another record of Robert Dudley and his brothers. This is an elaborately carved “rebus,” representing an oak tree for Robert (Robur), on which are acorns, with the initials R. D. carved beneath. Above the fireplace, which is, I fear, a restoration, appears an inscription of great interest, a pious Latin prayer with the illustrious name of Arundell cut in large letters, and dated June 22nd, 1587. This was the handiwork of the unfortunate Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, the son of that Duke of Norfolk who was beheaded in 1573 for his wish to marry the Queen of Scots. The fate of Philip Howard’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, who were all beheaded, weighed, not unnaturally, upon their descendant, and, being a zealous Roman Catholic, his position was one of great danger after the death of Tudor Mary. On Elizabeth’s accession Arundel made an ineffectual attempt to seek safety abroad, but was captured and placed in prison, where he remained until his death in 1595. Another inscription cut by him in this tower appears above some steps leading to the third storey: it is in Latin, and rendered into English, runs: “It is a reproach to be bound in the cause of sin; but to sustain the bonds of prison for the sake of Christ is the greatest of glory. Arundell, 26th May 1587.”

The Beauchamp Tower.

The late Duke of Norfolk printed, from the original MSS. kept at Arundel Castle, in 1857, a record entitled “The Lives of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, and of Anne Dacres his wife.” At the close of the book we read that “Whilst he (Arundel) was prisoner he was not only an example, but a singular comfort to all Catholicks. No one ever heard him complain either of the loss of his goods, or of the incommodities of the prison, or the being bereaved of his liberty; and such as he heard complain or understood to be aggrieved, he endeavoured by his words and courteous usage to comfort, strengthen, and confirm. His delight was in nothing but in God, and the contemplation of heavenly things; much of the money which the Queen did allow him for his maintenance (for to every prisoner in the Tower something is assigned, more or less according to each man’s degree) he gave to the poor, contenting himself with a spare and slender diet.” Lord Arundel rests in that most beautiful of England’s mausoleums, the chapel at Arundel.

In this chamber are more memorials of the family of Dudley—one an elaborate carving commemorating the magnificent Leicester and his four brothers, John, Ambrose, Guildford, and Henry. Within a frame formed by a garland of roses, geraniums, honeysuckles, and oak sprigs, are a bear and a lion supporting a ragged staff, the Dudley crest, with these lines beneath—

“You that these beasts do wel behold and se,

May deme with ease therefore here made they be,

With borders eke wherein four brothers names who list to serche the ground.”

One line is missing, but the Rev. R. Dick, in his interesting work on the Beauchamp Tower, thus completes the verse with the words, “these may be found.”

Prison in the Beauchamp Tower.

Of these four Dudley brothers, John was the eldest of the Duke of Northumberland’s sons, and became Earl of Warwick. It was he who helped his father in his attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne, and was imprisoned here until his death in 1554 in consequence. He was succeeded in the earldom of Warwick by his brother Ambrose, who is represented by the acorn in the garland on the wall; the rose stands for Robert, the geranium for Guildford, and the honeysuckle for Henry. All these suppositions are from Mr Dick’s work on the inscriptions, and whether correct or not, they are at any rate ingenious, and explain the lines.

On the left of the second recess in this room is written in the stone “I.W.S. 1571. Die Aprilis. Wise men ought circumspectly to see what they do—to examine before they speake—to prove before they take in hand—to beware whose company they use, and above all things, to whom they truste—Charles Bailly.” Bailly was a young Fleming who had been involved in one of the many plots to free Mary Stuart from her captivity; to judge from the above inscription he had reason to regret the company he had kept, and those in whom he had trusted. Near Bailly’s inscription, but outside the recess, is the name of John Store, Doctor. Store was one of the few of those who suffered death after imprisonment in the Tower, whose fate was merited. He was a bigoted Roman Catholic priest, whose intolerance and severity towards the Reformers procured him the office of Chancellor to the University of Oxford under Mary Tudor. He is said to have out-Bonnered Bonner in his persecutions of those of the Reformed faith who fell into his hands. When Elizabeth came to the throne Store fled to the Netherlands. But he was brought back, imprisoned in the Beauchamp Tower in 1571, and ended his career on the gallows at Tyburn.

There are several inscriptions in this chamber relating to the family of Pole, or, as the name is spelt on the walls, Poole. One of these is in the third recess in a loophole—E. Poole. This is Edmund Pole, a great-grandson of the murdered Duke of Clarence; he and his brother Arthur were here in 1562, being both involved in one of the real or imaginary plots against Elizabeth. Edmund Pole has engraved here that most consolatory of the Psalms, the cxxvi.—“Die semini in lachrimis in exilititiane meter.” In another recess is “A. Pole, 1564. I.H.S. To serve God. To endure penance. To obey fate is to reign.” Both brothers ended their sad lives in this prison. One name carved in this chamber has a deeper pathos than any inscription could convey; it is that of “Jane,” and it appears in two places in the Beauchamp Tower. One would like to think it inscribed by that peerless Jane Grey herself, but, as she was not imprisoned here, it was probably the handiwork of her husband, Guildford Dudley, or some adherent to her cause and sharer in her misfortune.

The name of Thomas Fitzgerald in one of the recesses records that it was here that the ninth Earl of Kildare with five of his uncles was imprisoned, having been inveigled from Ireland by Henry VIII. They were executed at Tyburn in 1538 for being concerned in a series of wild deeds in Ireland, amongst which the murder of the Archbishop of Armagh was the chief. Here, too, is the name of Thomas Cobham, with the date 1555, he being one of three brothers of that name who were placed in the Beauchamp for taking part in Sir Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion.

The earliest date in this tower is 1462, which is cut by the side of the name of Thomas Talbot. In all there are ninety-one names on the walls, of which I have noted the most important only.

To the north, and attached to the Beauchamp Tower, is the Chaplain’s house, with an uninteresting modernised front facing the Green, and but a few paces distant is a small paved plot of ground railed in by order of Queen Victoria. This little plot marks the site of the scaffold, and, above all things, it is sanctified by the memory of Lady Jane Grey. The first victim to suffer death on this spot was Anne Boleyn in 1538, and the last, Essex, the favourite of Elizabeth, in 1601. Here, too, in 1541, the venerable Countess of Salisbury was literally butchered; in the following year Catherine Howard was beheaded with her companion in misfortune, if not in guilt, Lady Rochford. Lord Hastings, Richard III.’s victim, was, I imagine, beheaded immediately beneath the walls of the White Tower, for the description of his sudden end shows that the site of Jane Grey’s scaffold was too distant for Richard Crookback to have glutted his eyes with Hastings’s death.

Prison Chamber in the Beauchamp Tower.

In former times the ground around the site of the scaffold on the Green was a place of burial, being the churchyard of the Chapel which faces it. “With the exception of the Abbey Church of St Peter’s at Westminster,” writes Mr Doyne Bell in his interesting monograph on the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower (a most appropriate title for a building of such tragic memories), “there is no ecclesiastical edifice in the United Kingdom in which (so far as it has been used as a place of sepulture) is contained so much historical interest as the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. Within its walls have been received the mortal remains of many, whose names, though not recorded on the stones of the pavement, must yet ever live in the pages of English history.” Macaulay in a well-known passage has called this chapel “the saddest spot on earth,” and in a less well-known passage has expressed his disgust at the vandalism which had “transformed this interesting little church into the likeness of a meeting-house in a manufacturing town.” Since the historian expressed this well-merited indignation at the treatment accorded to St Peter’s Chapel, the fabric has undergone a much needed restoration, happily not in the bad sense of that term, since it has been restored as much as possible to its condition in the middle of the sixteenth century. This restoration has been mercifully undertaken and skilfully executed, externally as well as internally, in every detail.

As far back as the reign of John, or even that of Henry I., a church stood on the site of St Peter’s Chapel. In the reign of Henry III., a Royal warrant, of the year 1241, was issued by that monarch at Windsor, directing that the Royal pew in St Peter’s should be repaired for the use of the King and Queen, and instructions were given for the refurbishing of a tabernacle with carved figures of St Peter, St Michael, and St Katherine. Of this church only a few vestiges remain in the crypt of the present chapel, which was built by Edward III. In a warrant dated from Fotheringay in July 1305–6, that King orders Ralph de Sandwich, Constable of the Tower, “to be reimbursed for various expenses incurred by him in the construction of our new chapel within the Tower.”

St Peter’s consists of a nave and a single aisle on its northern side; in length it is 66 feet, in width 54, and in height 25.

As Mr Doyne Bell points out, the peculiar dedication of the church to St Peter in Chains shows that it has been used since its foundation as a church more for the use of the prisoners in the fortress than for the sovereigns and their courts, whose place of devotion was the chapel of St John in the White Tower. With the exception of the church in Rome dedicated to St Peter ad Vincula, there is no other church besides this one in the Tower, so named. To those who see this building for the first time its general aspect must cause disappointment, so small and almost mean does it appear, and like a hundred similar churches scattered all over the country. But St Peter’s has undergone endless changes and alterations, and comparatively little is left of the building of Edward III. The exterior of the building belongs to the Tudor period. Before the last restoration, in 1867, Lord de Ros wrote, “It is inconceivable what pains have been taken in comparatively modern times to disfigure this interesting chapel.” But this reproach cannot be applied to the latest restoration, which was done with extreme care and good taste.

Interior of Sᵗ. Peter’s Chapel.

The larger portion of the present building dates from the reign of Henry VIII., when many alterations were made, the windows, with the exception of the one over the west door, the arches in the interior, and the timbered roof, being then placed as we see them now.

The list of interments in this chapel commences with the reign of Henry VIII. This list is one of the most interesting things in connection with the chapel.

When the Reformed Faith ousted Popery the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London over this chapel ceased, and it has ever since remained a benefice donative over which the Bishop has no power of visitation or deprivation, since the Tower itself is extra-parochial. Private marriages could be solemnised at St Peter’s, and in Ben Jonson’s “Every Man in his Humour,” this privilege is alluded to. One unlucky curate of the chapel, however, was sent to prison in James the First’s reign for having performed marriages and christenings in the chapel, and only secured his liberty through the influence of Sir William Waad, the Lieutenant of the Tower. Another clergyman named Hubbock and his son were excommunicated in 1620 by Laud for committing the same offence. Later on, however, the right of solemnising marriages and christenings in this chapel was allowed, and still continues.

Samuel Pepys has described in one of his vivid word pictures a visit he paid to the chapel after the Restoration, when he occupied one of the hideous pews that then choked the floor, and which were only removed a few years ago. “February 28, 1663–4. Lord’s Day. The Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir J. Robinson, would needs have me by coach home with him; where the officers of his regiment dined with him. I did go and dine with him, his ordinary table being very good, and his lady a very high carried, but a comely big woman, I was mightily pleased with her. After dinner to chapel in the Tower with the Lieutenant, with the keys carried before us; and I sat with the Lieutenant in his pew in great state. None it seems of the prisoners in the Tower that are there now, though they may, will come to prayers there.” With a monstrous gallery built in the reign of George II. for the use of the troops of the garrison, with the ugly square wooden pews, in one of which Pepys sat “in great state”; with the pavement all broken and defaced, with walls and columns whitewashed, and with the handsome carved Tudor ceiling coated with lath and plaster, it is no wonder that to any one with a respect for antiquity or love of beauty, St Peter’s in the Tower must have presented a sad spectacle before its restoration. And it was not until 1862 that any steps were taken to remove what was nothing less than a public disgrace. The improvements were commenced by re-opening the old doorway at the west end, which had been bricked up, the window of Edward I.’s time was also restored, the broken fragments having been collected and replaced in their original position. The lath and plaster which for a century or more had disfigured the ceiling were removed, and the finely carved old chestnut beams once more uncovered.

Further improvements were carried out during the time that Sir Charles Yorke was Constable, in the year 1876. Sir John Taylor, the head of the Office of Works, drew up the plans of this restoration, and, aided by Mr Salvin, the work of renovation commenced. There was much to be done, and it was certainly done well. The pews were the first excrescence to be removed, and the pavement, which was as uneven as that of St Mark’s at Venice, was taken up and a new one laid down. During this operation it was discovered that the ground had been used as a general place of burial, for besides those whose mutilated bodies had been placed under the pavement after execution, large numbers of other individuals had been interred here, and at a very shallow depth below the pavement. It was deemed necessary to remove these remains to the crypt before the new floor could be placed. Great care was taken to identify any remains of the illustrious dead, but in most cases it was impossible to do so owing to the ground having been so much disturbed and the bones scattered. Even greater care was taken when the floor of the chancel was reached, for it was known that the bodies of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, and of the Dukes of Northumberland and Somerset had been buried there. In 1877 the restoration of the Chapel was completed. Many interesting discoveries had been made, and needless to say, but for its state of decay, none of the poor fragments of mortality of the victims of their own ambition or the tyranny of monarchs, would have been disturbed. It was necessary to identify what remained of poor Anne Boleyn in order that above her bones the tombstone should bear its record of what lay below. “The forehead,” writes Mr Doyne Bell, “and lower jaw were small and especially well formed. The vertebrae were particularly small, especially one joint (the axlas), which was that next to the skull, and they bore witness to the queen’s ‘lyttel neck.’” The remains of another of Henry’s victims were found lying in the chancel, and belonged to the old Countess of Salisbury, Margaret Clarence. Near these some bones were found which were believed to have been those of Queen Catherine Howard, but her body, having been placed in quicklime, few traces of it remained. In this “dread abode” were also laid bare the bones of the Duke of Northumberland, and a portion of the Duke of Monmouth’s skeleton.

Near the entrance door is a memorial tablet on which a list of the most notable persons buried within the chapel is engraved—a list of thirty-four persons, commencing with Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, buried here in 1534, and ending with Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, in 1747. The old antiquarian, John Stowe, thus sums up with brief simplicity the illustrious dead that lie under the pavement of the chapel. “Here lieth before the high altar in St Peter’s Church, two Dukes between two Queens, to wit, the Duke of Somerset and the Duke of Northumberland, between Queen Anne and Queen Katherine, all four beheaded.” No record that Lady Jane Grey and her husband were interred in St Peter’s exists. It would not be easy to find a place in which so many remarkable dead are grouped together as in this little spot of English ground. Beneath our feet lies all that was mortal of what was once Northumberland and Somerset, Arundel and Norfolk; gentle Anne Boleyn and saint-like Jane Grey’s calm presence seem to linger near their graves: here, too, the once brilliant Monmouth moulders before the high altar; and hard by rest the faithful little band of Jacobites—Kilmarnock and brave Balmerino, and the wily old fox, Simon Fraser of Lovat.

One of the earliest and handsomest monuments in St Peter’s is that to Sir Richard Cholmondeley and his wife Elizabeth. The knight and his lady are lying side by side, sculptured in alabaster. Sir Richard, who was Lieutenant of the Tower in the reign of Henry VII., wears plate armour, his hand rests on his helmet, his feet on a lion; round his neck he wears the collar of SS. As was then the custom, this monument has been painted and gilded, traces of its decoration still remaining. This tomb was opened in 1876, but was found to contain only some fragments of the stone font of the chapel of Edward the Third’s time. Sir Richard had been knighted for his conduct on the field of Flodden. During his Lieutenancy of the Tower a riot broke out between the Londoners and some of the Lombard merchants, and Sir Richard, who seems to have been cursed with a bad temper, by way of quietening the brawlers, discharged the guns of the fortress against the city. Hall, in his chronicle, quaintly notices this act of the Lieutenant as follows:—

“Whilst this ruffling continued, Syr Richard Cholmly Knight, Lieutenant of the Tower, no great friende of the citie, in a frantyke fury losed certayn pieces of ordinance, and shot into the citie; whiche did little harme, howbeit his good will apeered.” This choleric knight died in 1544.

Monument of Sir Richard Cholmondeley and his Wife in Sᵗ. Peter’s Chapel.

On the north side of the chancel is a handsome double monument to the memory of Sir Richard Blount and to his son Sir Michael; both these Blounts were Lieutenants of the Tower. Sir Richard, clothed in armour, is represented as praying; behind him kneel his two sons, whilst facing him, upon their knees, are Lady Blount and two daughters. Sir Richard died in 1564. Sir Michael, whose effigy, also clad in armour, was placed near that of his father thirty-two years later, and his family, consisting of his wife, three sons and one daughter, are also devoutly kneeling. Below the Blount monument is a little inscription to the memory of Lyster Blount, a child of two years old: it ends with these hopeful words, “Here they all lye to expect ye coming of our sweet Saviour Jesu. Amen, Amen.”

Against the south wall is a black marble tablet inscribed to the memory of Sir Allen Apsley,[5] who was Lieutenant of the Tower in the time of James and Charles the First. His daughter was that Mrs Hutchinson whose name will be remembered by her admirable memoirs of her husband Colonel Hutchinson, who was imprisoned in the Bloody Tower, where she shared his imprisonment. Sir Allen died in 1630. The first Earl Bathurst (Lord Chancellor) was descended from him, and it was he who built Apsley House. On the same wall are mural tablets to the memory of Sir John Burgoyne, Field Marshal and Constable of the Tower, who died in 1871, and is buried in the crypt of the chapel; also to Lord De Ros, the last Deputy-Lieutenant of the Tower, who died in 1874, and to whose book on the fortress allusion has often been made in these pages. Among other good work done by Lord de Ros was to replace the tombstone of brave old Talbot Edwards, who so nearly lost his life in defending the Crown jewels when they were seized by Blood. This stone, which had been cast aside and lay among a heap of rubbish in front of the Beauchamp Tower, after being used as a paving-stone up to the year 1852 in front of the houses which up to that time had almost hidden that tower from the Green, was replaced in the chapel. It bears the following inscription: “Here lieth ye body of Talbot Edwards, Gent.: late Keeper of his Ma’ᵗˢ Regalia who dyed ye 30 of September 1674, aged 80 years and 9 moneths.” Neither in life nor in death was this brave old Keeper of the Crown well treated. Charles the Second settled a handsome pension on the scoundrel Blood—hush-money probably, for it is within the bounds of possibility that Charles was a party to Blood’s attempt—whilst the sole reward of honest old Talbot Edwards, who was half-killed in guarding the treasures of which he had charge, was the consciousness of having done his duty. The Communion plate dates from the reign of Charles the First and Charles the Second, and it is singular to find that instead of the sacred initials being engraved on these vessels only the Royal monogram of C. R. with a crown appear upon them. Severely simple in shape and devoid of any ornament, this Sacramental plate is historically interesting, for these cups and plates have been used at the solemn hour when the Blessed Sacrament was administered to more than one illustrious prisoner on the eve of his execution. There is good reason for believing that Monmouth and William, Lord Russell used these sacred vessels shortly before mounting the scaffold.

Tomb of the Blount Family in Sᵗ. Peter’s Chapel.

At the back of the chapel of St Peter, and at the north-western angle of the Inner Ward, stands the Devereux Tower, which contains two storeys, the lower one being of massive masonry. This tower dates from the reign of Richard the First. In the Elizabethan survey of the fortress it is named Robyn the Devylls Tower, and in later times it was known as the Develin Tower, and as such it appears in Haiward’s plan. No record has come down as to the meaning of these names, but the present appellation dates from the reign of Elizabeth, when Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was a prisoner there. The upper part of the tower is modern, and modern windows have taken the place of the old loopholes in the 11 feet thick walls, a change which has destroyed the character of the building; formerly it was most gloomy and forbidding. A small winding staircase within the tower leads to a couple of prisons constructed in the thickness of the Ballium wall. A secret passage is supposed to have led thence, to the Flint Tower which stands to the east of the Devereux Tower, communicating also with the vaults under St Peter’s Chapel. Nothing remains, however, in the present modernised state of these passages and prisons to indicate their former appearance. Early in the nineteenth century the lower floor of the Devereux Tower was used as a kitchen and other offices connected with the ordnance; the upper portion was occupied by the Master Furbisher of the Small Arms. The old kitchen, beneath which is a dungeon, has a fine vaulted ceiling.

The Flint Tower lies due east, at a distance of 90 feet from the Devereux Tower, but as it was found to be in an entirely ruinous state in 1796, the old fabric was pulled down and the present ugly brick tower rose in its place. The old tower had been known by the unflattering name of “Little Hell,” probably from the noisomeness of its dungeons, and it had the evil reputation of having the worst prisons in the fortress. Another 90 feet from the Flint Tower stands the Bowyer Tower, of which only the base is ancient, the remainder of the building being modern; this tower dates from the reign of Edward the Third, and it was here that the Duke of Clarence is traditionally said to have been drowned in a butt of Malmsey (Malvoisie) wine. According to those learned historians of the Tower, Britton and Brayley, who wrote in the early part of the nineteenth century, there was a vault in a dungeon in this tower closed by a trap door, which opened on a flight of steps; from these steps a narrow cell led into a secret passage made in the thickness of the Ballium wall. This was one of the many secret passages which ran below ground, and of which, as has already been noticed, an important one was discovered when the Main Guard building was demolished in 1899. Mr G. J. Clark, a great authority in these matters, has stated his belief that there were several of these secret passages in the fortress. One of these, he thinks, ran between the White Tower and the King’s House, and Father Gerard’s account of the way he was led to and from the White Tower and the Governor’s or King’s House points to an underground passage between those buildings. It has been surmised that a subterranean passage led from out the Tower below the Thames to the Southwark side of London; in the Beauchamp Tower a secret passage was discovered in the thickness of the Ballium wall, where persons might have been placed to watch and overhear all that went on within the tower.[6]

The Bowyer Tower was so named because it was the dwelling of the royal maker of bows, and the place where he turned out the Long Bow, as well as the Cross Bow, and many other mediæval weapons of destruction, such as the Balistar, the Scorpion, and the Catapult. In 1223 one Grillot made here the “balistar corneas,” as that mysterious weapon is described in an old record, and for his labour he was rewarded by the gift of a new gown for his wife.

Next to the Bowyer Tower stands the Brick Tower, but it has been modernised. In shape this tower resembles a horse shoe; it is 40 feet in diameter. Between this tower and the Martin Tower the curtain wall extends some 60 feet, the sally-port stairs being passed between the two towers. As has been the general fate of most of the towers, the Martin Tower is externally entirely modern, whilst the interior has been casemated. At one time the Regalia was kept here, having been brought in 1644 from their former resting-place in a small building on the south side, and close to, the White Tower, called the Jewel House, where they had been kept, when not in pawn, from the time of Henry III. In the reign of Edward III. these jewels are referred to as being in “la Tour Blanche,” and in the same reign there is also a reference to the “Tresorie deinz la haute Toure de Londres.” It was from the Martin Tower that Blood attempted to steal the Regalia.

The Martin Tower forms the north-east angle of the Inner Ward, and its basement floor, where the Crown jewels were formerly kept, now serves as a kitchen for the warder and his family, who occupy the tower. The most ancient part of the Martin Tower dates from the reign of Henry III., but Sir Christopher Wren, who spoilt the ancient appearance of many parts of the Tower, played especial havoc here. The old windows were removed and replaced by ugly stone-faced ones, which was also done in the White Tower, where, with scarcely one exception, the original Norman windows have been destroyed and Wren’s incongruities substituted for them.

Placed on the ground at the base of the Martin Tower is a handsome architrave of stone, in alto-relievo, representing the Royal coat-of-arms in the time of William III., blended with military trophies such as helmets, kettledrums, and cannon—

“The shrill trump, the spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,

The royal banner, and all quality,

Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war.”

This is one of Grinling Gibbons’s most spirited designs, graceful in its lines, sharp and refined in its moulding. This sculpture is all that remains of the great Store House, built in the reign of William III. and destroyed by fire in 1841.

Beyond the Martin Tower, the Ballium wall takes a slanting course to the south and river side of the fortress, to where, about 100 feet south of the Martin Tower, stands the Constable Tower, modern from roof to base. It was so named in the reign of Henry VIII. because it was occupied by the Constable of the Tower. During the reign of Charles I. it was used as a prison. “In form,” writes Brayley, “it closely corresponds with the Beauchamp Tower, but it is of rather smaller dimensions; the interior has been modernised, and the windows greatly enlarged.” South of the Constable Tower, and next to it, is the Broad Arrow Tower, which in Tudor times was known as “the tower at the east end of the Wardrobe.” Until some thirty years ago this tower was entirely hidden by an ugly row of barracks. It was used as a prison throughout the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, and there are a few signatures still to be seen on the walls of a room on the first floor. Unfortunately, repeated coats of whitewash have almost obliterated all the inscriptions. A list, however, of these as they appeared in 1830 is given by Britton and Brayley. Amongst them are the names of “John Daniell, 1556”; “Giovani Battista, 1556”; “Thomas Forde, 1582”; “John Stoughton, 1586”; and “J. Gage, January 1591.” Little is known of any of the above men except that Daniell was mixed up in a plot against the Queen, and to rob the Exchequer, in the reign of Mary, and was hanged on Tower Hill. Forde was a priest, and was executed for denying Elizabeth’s supremacy in the Church; and Stoughton and Gage are also supposed to have been priests. Of the Italian, Battista, no record has come to us. Near the top of this tower a small doorway opens on to the platform that runs along the Ballium wall. Close to this doorway is a narrow cell 6 feet deep and 3½ feet wide, with only one small loophole to admit air and light.

The building known by the name of the King’s Private Wardrobe stood close to this tower, as well as another tower called the Wardrobe. Both these buildings were cleared away before the reign of James II., their sites being now covered with offices or stores. The Royal robes, armour, and probably the Royal upholstery, such as tapestry, hangings, etc., were kept in the Wardrobe buildings, which were connected with the Palace.

The Salt Tower forms the south-east angle of the Inner Ward. In the reign of Henry VIII. it was called Julius Cæsar’s Tower, although it had no more connection with Julius Cæsar than with Sardanapalus. It is circular in shape, and has three floors, which are connected by a small winding staircase. Upon the first floor is a fine chimney-piece decorated with scroll mouldings. The upper storey was used as a powder store; but, having fallen into decay, it was restored in 1876. The Salt Tower is probably one of the oldest buildings in the Tower, dating as far back as the reign of William Rufus. It possesses a vaulted dungeon with deep recesses in the walls. In a prison on the first floor are some inscriptions cut into the wall, and amongst them is a very elaborate device representing a sphere intersected by lines radiating from the signs of the Zodiac. Above the sphere is this inscription, “Hew: Draper : of Brystow: made : thys : Spheer : the : 30 : day : of : Maye : Anno : 1561.” Draper was imprisoned on a charge of sorcery and magic.

One of the most interesting escapes from the Tower is closely connected with this place, and although the story of adventures that befell a poor Jesuit priest named Father Gerard, in the reign of Elizabeth, is a long one, it deserves being told in some detail, for the manner of his escape from the fortress is one of the most curious records of prison-breaking. Father Gerard, together with many other Roman Catholic priests, was hunted down as a criminal of the deepest dye, and being captured, was clapped into the Salt Tower, in a prison on its upper floor, the charge against him being that he was concerned in a plot against the life of the Queen. He was examined on the day of his arrival in the Tower by the Lords of the Council in the Governor’s Lodging—now the King’s House, and in the same room in which Guy Fawkes was afterwards interrogated. Amongst Father Gerard’s judges were the Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke, Sir Francis Bacon, and Sir William Waad. Questioned as to the plot, in which another priest, Father Garnet, was involved, Gerard refused to give any information. He was told that if he persisted in his silence he would be tortured, and an order was produced by which they were given permission (for torture has always been illegal in England) if necessary “to prolong the torture from day to day as long as life lasted.” The threat failing in its effect Gerard was taken to “the place appointed for the torture,” and, to quote his own words, “We went in a sort of solemn procession, the attendants preceding us with lighted candles because the place was underground (the subterranean passage under the White Tower) and very dark, especially about the entrance. It was a place of immense extent, and in it were ranged divers sorts of racks, and other instruments of torture. Some of these they displayed before me, and told me that I should have to taste them. They led me to a great upright beam or pillar of wood, which was one of the supports of this vast crypt.”

Father Gerard was then hung up by his hands, these having first been placed in iron gauntlets which were attached to an iron rod fixed in the pillar. A stool upon which he stood was taken from under him, and he hung by his wrists, the whole weight of his body depending from them. He was a heavy man, and his sufferings were acute. Whilst in this position the Commissioners looked on, pressing the suffering man with questions, but receiving no reply they left him, and for the next hour the wretched priest hung suspended by his tortured wrists. He fainted several times from the anguish; later in the afternoon Sir William Waad returned and again tried to obtain some confession from Gerard, but when nothing could be wrung from him, Waad turned on his heel in a rage, crying, “Hang thou then, till you rot.” Raleigh’s description of the Lieutenant of the Tower as “that beast Waad” had certainly some justification. When the tolling of the bell in the Bell Tower gave the signal that the fortress would be closed, the Commissioners were obliged to leave the Tower, and the poor, tortured, half-dead priest was taken down, and, scarcely able to crawl, was led back to his prison in the Salt Tower. On the following day Gerard was again taken to the Lieutenant’s Lodging, where Waad informed him that he had been with “Master Secretary Cecil,” who knew for a fact that Father Gerard had been mixed up with other plotters in schemes against Elizabeth’s life, and that more details would have to be given by him on this matter. Again Gerard refused to say anything that could compromise others, upon which Waad summoned a terrible personage, the chief superintendent of the torturers of the prison, to whom Sir William said, “I deliver this man into your hands. You are to wrack him twice a day until such time as he chooses to confess.” Thereupon, says Father Gerard, they went down again to the torture chamber with the same solemnity as on the previous day, and he was again subjected to the torture of the gauntlets, made additionally painful from the swollen state of his hands and wrists. He swooned repeatedly, and was revived with some difficulty. All through these hours of agony he refused to give one name, or to make any kind of confession of guilt, and Waad swore and raged in vain. As long, Gerard declared, as he lived he would say nothing. For the third time he was tortured and hung up by the wrists. But when Waad at length saw the futility of torturing him to death he ordered him to be taken back to his prison, whence, as we shall see, he effected his escape.

Another Roman Catholic, named John Arden, who was a fellow-prisoner of Gerard’s at this time, was confined in the Cradle Tower, a small tower in the Outer Ward standing on the Ballium wall some 100 feet south of the Salt Tower and facing the Thames. The two prisoners were sufficiently near to see each other from their respective prison windows, the space between the two towers being then occupied by the Privy garden of the Palace. Father Gerard persuaded his gaoler to allow him to pay Arden a visit in his prison, and the two men, laying their heads together, concocted the following plan. By writing to their friends outside the tower in orange juice, which caused the letters to be invisible unless subjected to a treatment known to the initiated, Father Gerard succeeded in getting a thin cord with a leaden weight attached to one end. It was further planned that upon a certain night a boat should be brought to a certain place by the river bank opposite the Cradle Tower. On this particular evening Father Gerard lingered late in Arden’s prison, and when the pre-arranged hour came they slung the lead at the end of the line across the moat. This was caught by their friends in the boat, and a stout rope having been fastened to the line, the two prisoners hauled it over the roof of the Cradle Tower from the boat, and made it fast. Gerard was the first to descend from the roof, swarming along the rope in the darkness; and he reached the boat in safety. For three weeks after the torture of the gauntlets, his hands were paralysed, and it was five months before the sense of touch returned to them.

Next to the Salt Tower in the Inner Ward stands the Lanthorn Tower, which has been entirely rebuilt. In former days this tower communicated with the exterior rampart by an embattled gateway; it faces the river and stands half-way between the Salt and the Wakefield Towers. In Henry VIII.’s time the Lanthorn Tower was called the New Tower, and then formed the end of the Queen’s Gallery in the Palace, “over the Kyng’s bede-chamber and prevy closet,” as the survey taken in that reign describes it. This tower had been almost destroyed in a fire in 1788, and what remained was removed, only the basement vault being left. This basement was used as a cellar by the keeper of the soldiers’ canteen, which stood on the opposite side of the way: to such base uses had the old tower of the Palace adorned by Henry III. fallen. Henry III. built the Ballium wall and fortified it with this tower, which he fitted up splendidly for his own habitation, and whose chambers he decorated with frescoes; the subject of one of these was the story of Antiochus. The tower was circular in shape, and surmounted by a small turret, as can be seen by referring to Haiward and Gascoyne’s plan. After the fire of 1788 a huge unsightly warehouse was built on its site, blocking out the fortress from the river front. This monstrosity was only removed some five-and-twenty years ago. The present building is as nearly as possible a reproduction of the original tower of Henry the Third, by Salvin, who also carried out the building of the handsome curtain wall of the Inner Ward, commencing at the Salt Tower and terminating at the Wakefield Tower.

In an interesting article in the Nineteenth Century, Mr A. B. Mitford says that, although it was impossible to give back the stones that prated of the wars of the Roses, “the old towers and walls rose again as nearly as possible similar to their predecessors as the skill of man could make them,” under Salvin’s superintendence. There is a view of the old Lanthorn Tower before its destruction in 1788, in a rare print of the early part of the eighteenth century, which is here reproduced.