During the unhappy reign of Edward II court was kept in the Tower with a splendour before unknown. Here the king's children were born, and here Roger Mortimer, although a captive, began the guilty intrigue with Queen Isabella which ended in disaster and disgrace for all.
More royal tenants appeared under Edward III. King David of Scotland was confined in 1347, and in 1358, after Poitiers, King John of France and his son joined the great number of French nobles whom the fortunes of war had brought hither. It was in the Tower also that Edward's unworthy grandson, Richard II, saw his favourite, Simon Burley, seized by the indignant nobles and finally taken to Tower Hill. It is said that this was the first public execution on Tower Hill, just north of
the Tower itself. In the Tower also Sir John Oldcastle suffered, and the old walls saw Richard yield to Henry of Lancaster the crown which he was too weak to hold.
With the accession of Henry V the war with France was renewed and again many French nobles became tenants of the pile. One of them, Charles of Orleans, grandson of Charles V, is described by Shakespeare. Wounded and captured at Agincourt, the impossible ransom of 300,000 crowns was demanded by his unsuccessful rival, Henry V, who had failed to win the love of Isabella, widow of Richard II of England. Indeed Henry preferred that he remain a perpetual prisoner; and a prisoner he remained for twenty-five years, spending his time with his books and his verses, many addressed to his dead wife. Finally released, he married Mary of Cleves, and their son was Louis XII, who married Mary, the sister of Henry VIII of England.
With the Wars of the Roses, the records became more bloody, and the sanguinary tinge continues through the Tudor period. During the first period it was great house against great house, but during the Tudor period began the great struggle for political freedom, which at times seemed hopeless of attainment.
No figure so dominates the first period as the sinister, humpbacked brother of Edward IV, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Richard III of England. His influence is felt in the sober history as well as
in the plays of Shakespeare. He is said to have stabbed with his own hand the imbecile Henry VI, who had already at a previous time spent five years a prisoner in the Tower. Tradition persists that he drowned his brother the Duke of Clarence, in a butt of the latter's favourite wine. We know of his denunciation of Lord Hastings on charge of witchcraft and of the murder of that unhappy nobleman. We know that he kept Jane Shore, the mistress of his brother, in prison here until all her charms were faded.
But the mysterious disappearance of the two little princes has done most to damn his memory. As the result of the marriage with Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV left two sons, Edward V, aged twelve, and Richard, aged eight. Gloucester was Protector but with diabolical cunning threw doubt upon the legitimacy of the boys placed under his charge. They were confided to Sir John Brackenbury, the lieutenant of the Tower, while the preparations for the coronation went on. Their mother, filled with unhappy forebodings for them and fearful of her own fate, was in sanctuary at Westminster.
The tale as we have it runs thus: Richard left for the north after sending a plain message to the lieutenant of the Tower. At Warwick, Richard was informed that the worthy knight refused to do his bidding. Nothing daunted, Richard sent orders that for one night only he should give up
his command to Sir James Tyrrell. That officer, who lived in mortal fear of Richard, came to the Tower accompanied by two ruffians, secured the keys and the passwords, went down to the Garden tower and sent his ruffians up-stairs. Shortly they called him to see that the work was done. There lay the princes, dead. The oldest account says that one was smothered while the throat of the other was cut. Quickly a priest was called and the bodies consigned to earth. Later this priest moved them secretly, where, no one knew, and shortly after died. As the bodies could not be shown some doubted the death of the little princes, and later we have the claim of Perkin Warbeck that he was one of the princes, escaped from the Tower and marvellously spared. Perhaps he may have been Edward's son, for that king ruined many women beside Jane Shore.