captivity here; the Dudley carving (No. 14), consisting of a frame made up of a garland of roses, geraniums, honeysuckle, and oak leaves. Within are a bear and lion supporting a ragged staff, which is the Dudley crest. Beneath is the name of the carver, John Dudley—the eldest of five Dudley brothers imprisoned in this chamber. This John, Earl of Warwick, died here, a prisoner. The Bailly inscription (No. 17) dates from Elizabeth’s reign, and was carved by Charles Bailly, involved in plots to liberate Mary Queen of Scots after her coming to England. He has carved these words on the stone: “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.” The Earl of Arundel, one of the devout Catholics mentioned by Scott, died, in this room, after ten years’ imprisonment in the Tower. His inscription is in Latin, and dated June 22, 1587. The words may be translated, “The more suffering for Christ in this world, the more will be the glory with Christ in the next. Thou hast crowned him with honour and glory, O Lord! In memory everlasting he will be just.” Another carving (No. 26), of April 22, 1559, concludes thus: “There is an end of all things, and the ende of a thing is better than the beginin. Be wyse and pacyente in troble, for wysdom defends the as well as mony. Use well the tyme of prosperite, ande remember the tyme of misfortewn.” This inscription bears some resemblance to another of Bailly’s (No. 51), where he has recorded on his prison wall that, “The most unhapy man in the world is he that is not pacient in adversities; for men are not killed with the adversities they have, but with the impacience which they suffer.... Hope to the end and have pacience.” If any were in need of patience and of hope they were these poor prisoners in the Beauchamp Tower. Another captive, T. Salmon, in 1622 recorded that he had been kept “close prisoner here, 8 months, 32 weeks, 224 days, 5,376 hours.” The husband of Lady Jane Grey carved on these walls (No. 85) the one word “Jane,” and this in its simplicity is the saddest of all the writings on the wall. This tower, which was restored by Salvin in 1854, still retains an original Edward III. window and much other ancient work; its name is derived from the Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, imprisoned towards the end of the fourteenth century. During the time of the Wyatt rebellion it appears to have been known as the Cobham Tower, but that name did not adhere to it long. It consists of three floors, the main prison-room being on the second storey, and possesses a battlemented roof. In this tower a secret passage has been discovered, in the wall, where spies could hover and overhear the talk of prisoners. To the north of it, and opposite the Chapel, stands the Chaplain’s House, and that portion of Tower Green immediately adjoining was at one period a burial-ground for “Tower parishioners.”
Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula.—The crypt of the present chapel was built in the reign of Henry III.; all that stands above it is of the Tudor period. In 1867 it received its last careful restoration, but apart from its tragic associations it is not a very inspiring bit of ecclesiastical architecture. There is a peculiar stiffness about the building and an oppressive gloom in the place that makes one regard it rather as a large tomb than as a church for living men and women to worship in. Strangely enough, one has none of this feeling when visiting the Chapel of St. John in the White Tower, which is a place that never fails to lead the thoughts to another world than this. In St. Peter’s one is haunted by generations of spectres who have passed from life to death by violent means, and one has also the fear that Macaulay is lingering in some corner and moralising on the pathos of it all. Under the pavement of this church, as was discovered at the 1876 restoration, the victims from the scaffold, of royal blood or otherwise, were very hastily and carelessly interred, at no great depth. The bones of Queen Anne Boleyn were identified and now lie in front of the altar with those of Queen Katherine Howard, and the Dukes of Northumberland and Somerset. Mr. Doyne Bell, describing the discovery of the remains of Anne Boleyn, says, “The forehead and lower jaw were small and especially well formed. The vertebræ were particularly small, especially one joint, which was that next to the skull, and they bore witness to the Queen’s ‘lyttel neck.’” The skeletons of the aged Countess of Salisbury and of the Duke of Monmouth were also found. A list of the notable people buried in this church will be seen on the west wall near the door, and here, too, are preserved portions of the leaden coffin lids of the Scots lords who were the last victims of the block on Tower Hill. Several very interesting memorials of those famous in Tower annals will be noticed on the east and south walls near the chancel. The elaborate tomb to the left, within the altar rails, is erected in memory of Sir Richard Blount and of Sir
Michael, his son, both Lieutenants of the Tower in their time. These Blounts died in the middle of the sixteenth century. In the body of the church Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher, Protector Somerset and Thomas Cromwell, Strafford and Sir John Eliot, lie buried. One of the earliest monuments in the building is that lying between the organ and chancel, commemorating Sir Richard Cholmondeley and his wife Elizabeth. The recumbent figures are carved in alabaster. Neither the knight nor his lady was buried in the church. Sir Richard held the position of Lieutenant of the Tower in Henry VII.’s reign. Lord de Ros, the last Deputy-Lieutenant of the Tower, and author of a valuable record of its history, who died in 1874, has a memorial here. It was owing to his care that the tombstone covering the grave of Talbot Edwards, so nearly killed when defending the Crown Jewels at the time of the Colonel Blood onslaught, was replaced. This slab had been doing duty as a paving-stone on Tower Green. The Communion Plate of St. Peter’s dates from the time of the first Charles, and the vessels bear the royal monogram, C.R., with crown above. They have been used by many a condemned captive just before the hour appointed for death.
CHAPTER IV
A WALK ROUND THE TOWER
These manacles upon my arm
I, as my mistress’ favours, wear;
And for to keep my ancles warm,
I have some iron shackles there;
These walls are but my garrison; this cell,
Which men call jail, doth prove my citadel.
Old Ballad.
On leaving the Tower gateway we turn into the gardens on the right and walk along the pathway that lies beneath Tower Hill and above the moat. An excellent view is to be obtained from these gardens of the outer defences of the Tower. The western front exhibits a striking mass of buildings of various age and colour. At first glance we might imagine we were looking upon a bit of sixteenth-century Nuremberg. We would not be at all surprised to see Hans Sachs, Veit Pogner, or Sixtus Beckmesser look out from the windows above the Ballium Wall. Below lie the Casemates or outer defences, running, on this western side, from the Byward Tower to Legge’s Mount, named, it is conjectured, after George Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, who had charge of the battery in the seventeenth century. The Outward Wall was put up by Henry III.
The Devereux Tower.—This tower stands at the north-west angle of the Ballium Wall, above Legge’s Mount battery. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and friend of Shakespeare, was a prisoner here in Elizabeth’s reign, hence the name; but in earlier days it was known as Robyn the Devyll’s, or Develin Tower. It is so termed in the 1597 plan reproduced at the end of this book. The lower and older portion of the tower dates back to the time of Richard I.; the upper portions are modern restorations of what had existed previously, but the arrow-slits, which formerly pierced the walls and admitted so little light to the interior of one of the gloomiest towers in the fortress, are now widened to windows. The walls are eleven feet thick, and a small staircase leads from the tower to cells lying within the thickness of the Ballium Wall. The lower floor contains an old kitchen with finely vaulted ceiling; beneath this there is a forbidding dungeon, and underground passages at one time led thence to the vaults of St. Peter’s Church. But the secret subways are now sealed up and their existence probably forgotten.