The chief Mint of England was, from the Conquest down to 1811, situated within Tower walls. It was removed in the year just mentioned to the present buildings on the eastern side of Little Tower Hill, over which visitors are shown if application be made beforehand to the Deputy-Master. The art of “making money” is here shown from the solid bar of gold to the new sovereign, washed and tested, sent out on its adventurous career in a world which will welcome its face in whatever company it appears. The Mint also possesses an excellently arranged museum of coins and medals, in which are many invaluable treasures.
Trinity House, headquarters of the Trinity Brethren, stands on Tower Hill, facing the Tower. A graceful and well-proportioned building, it supplants the older quarters in Water Lane, Great Tower Street. The corporation of Trinity House was established in 1529 as “The Masters, Wardens, and Assistants of the Guild, or Fraternity, or Brotherhood of the Most Glorious and Undividable Trinity,” and the first headquarters was situated near the river, at Deptford. The guild was founded by Sir Thomas Spert, Comptroller of the Navy to Henry VIII., and commander of the great ship, “a huge gilt four-master, the Harry Grace de Dieu,” in which the King sailed to Calais on his way to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. In 1854 “the exclusive right of lighting and buoying the coast” was given to the Board of Trinity House. Within Trinity House to-day may be seen models of practically all the important lighthouses and lightships on the English coast. The regulations of Trinity House in former times are described by Strype, and among them we find rules to the effect that “Bumboats with fruit, wine, and strong waters were not permitted by them to board vessels. Every mariner who swore, cursed, or blasphemed on board ship was to pay one shilling to the ship’s poor-box. Every mariner found drunk was fined one shilling, and no mariner could absent himself from prayers unless sick, without forfeiting sixpence.” The present House on Tower Hill was built in 1793-95 by Samuel Wyatt. On the front, Ionic in character, are sculptured the arms of the corporation, medallions of George III. and Queen Charlotte, genii with nautical instruments, and representations of four of the principal lighthouses on the coast. The interior is beautified by several valuable pictures, one of them a large Gainsborough, and a suite of most handsome furniture. Here, too, is preserved a flag taken from the Spanish Armada by Drake, and many curious old maps and charts. The present Master of Trinity House is H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, who visits Tower Hill every Trinity Monday, and, with the Elder Brethren, walks through Trinity Square and Catherine Court to service at the parish church.
An old print hanging in one of the rooms of Trinity House depicts, with some realism, the last execution on Tower Hill, in 1747, when Lord Lovat suffered. In August of the previous year the Earl of Kilmarnock and Lord Balmerino had been brought to the block after the Culloden tragedy. A journal of the time gives us a most detailed account of the proceedings, from which some extracts may be taken in order to form some idea of procedures that were soon to end for ever. “About 8 o’clock the Sheriffs of London ... and the executioner met at the Mitre Tavern in Fenchurch Street, where they breakfasted, and went from thence to the house, on Tower Hill near Catherine’s Court [now Catherine House], hired by them for the reception of the lords before they should be conducted to the scaffold, which was erected about thirty yards from the said house. At ten o’clock the block was fixed on the stage and covered with black cloth, with several sacks of sawdust up to strew on it; soon after the coffins were brought, also covered with black cloth.” The leaden plates from the lids of these coffins are those now preserved on the west wall of St. Peter’s on Tower Green. “At a quarter after ten,” the account proceeds, “the Sheriffs went in procession to the outward gate of the Tower, and after knocking at it some time, a warder within asked, ‘Who’s there?’ The officer without replied, ‘The Sheriffs of London and Middlesex.’ The warder then asked, ‘What do they want?’ The officer answered, ‘The bodies of William, Earl of Kilmarnock, and Arthur, Lord Balmerino,’ upon which the warder within said, ‘I will go and inform the Lieutenant of the Tower,’ and in about ten minutes the Lieutenant with the Earl of Kilmarnock, and Major White with Lord Balmerino, guarded by several of the warders, came to the gate; the prisoners were then delivered to the Sheriffs, who gave proper receipt for their bodies to the Lieutenant, who as usual said, ‘God bless King George!’ to which the Earl of Kilmarnock assented by a bow, and the Lord Balmerino said, ‘God bless King James!’ Lord Kilmarnock had met Lord Balmerino at the foot of the stairs in the Tower and said to him, ‘My lord, I am heartily sorry to have your company in this expedition.’” The prisoners were led to the house near the block in Trinity Square, and they spent what time was left to them in devotions. Kilmarnock was brought out to the scaffold first. “The executioner, who before had something administered to keep him from fainting, was so affected by his lordship’s distress, and the awfulness of the scene that, on asking his [Lord Kilmarnock’s] forgiveness, he burst into tears. My Lord bade him take courage, giving him at the same time a purse with five guineas, and telling him he would drop his handkerchief as a signal for the stroke.... In the meantime, when all things were ready for the execution, and the black bays which hung over the rails of the scaffold having, by the direction of the Colonel of the Guard, or the Sheriffs, been turned up that
the people might see all the circumstances of the execution, in about two minutes after he kneeled down his lordship dropped his handkerchief. The executioner at once severed the head from the body, except only a small portion of the skin which was immediately divided by a gentle stroke. The head was received in a piece of red baize and, with the body, immediately put into the coffin.” Lord Balmerino followed shortly afterwards, wearing the uniform in which he had fought at Culloden. His end was not so swift as Lord Kilmarnock’s had been; twice the executioner bungled his stroke, and not until the third blow was the head severed.
Lord Lovat, whom Hogarth had seen, and painted, in the White Hart Inn at St. Albans as the prisoner was being brought to London, was led to the block on Tower Hill on Thursday, April 9, 1747, and his was the last blood that was shed there. Just before his execution, a scaffolding, which had been erected at the eastern end of Barking Alley, fell and brought to the ground a thousand spectators who had secured places upon it to view the execution. Twelve were killed outright and scores of others injured. “Lovat,” as the account puts it, “in spite of his awful situation, seemed to enjoy the downfall of so many Whigs.” Lord Lovat’s head was, at one blow, severed from his body, and Tower Hill’s record of bloodshed was at an end.
CHAPTER VI
ALLHALLOWS BARKING BY THE TOWER
Calm Soul of all things! make it mine
To feel, amid the city’s jar,
That there abides a peace of thine
Man did not make, and cannot mar.
Matthew Arnold.
On the south-west side of Tower Hill there stands the oldest parish church in London. But beyond the earliest date that we find any portion of the present building mentioned, it is more than probable that a still more ancient church occupied this piece of ground. Consider the importance of the site. The approach to London from the sea was then, as now, a somewhat dreary progress between the mud-flats that fringed the river. On the northern bank the rising ground, now known as Tower Hill, would be the first relief to the eye after the wearying Essex marshes. Beyond and behind that hill lay the little city, and beside that hill was set a church. But, with the building of the White Tower, the church was eclipsed as a landmark for boats on the river, and now it is quite obscured from the water-side by hideous brick warehouses that only men of the nineteenth century could conceive and erect. In early days this church stood on the edge of London; now it is in its very centre. Yet few buildings equally well preserved have altered as little as this old building has—this “fair church on Tower Hill”—and we have here handed down to us much that is unique as a record not only of English history but of the progress of architecture. The furnishings of the church, the carvings and wrought-iron work, also carry us through generations of activity in such arts, and the pavement brasses and sculptured tombs serve as memorials of many a famous Englishman. The church has an additional interest in being the nearest ancient building outside the Tower walls and in having received, for burial, victims from the block on Tower Hill. Yet the close connection of this ancient church with the Tower and its history has not, hitherto, been sufficiently emphasised. It is well, therefore, that we should give Allhallows some of our time when we have explored and examined the Tower itself.