The Minories leads from the Tower to Aldgate High Street. Black and grim at the head of this thoroughfare, rises the spire of the church of St. Botolph. This structure, built in 1744, is on the site of an ancient church. Here is still preserved the head of the Duke of Suffolk, father of Lady Jane Grey, a relic formerly kept in the church of Holy Trinity.
Off this busy street called Minories, the first turning south of Aldgate is a narrow hidden way called Church Street. Here, literally buried from sight, is the tiny yellow and ancient church of Holy Trinity, once belonging to an abbey of Minorites which was founded by Blanche, Queen of Navarre, now used as a parish chapel of St. Botolph Aldgate. Many persons sought out this church in the past, to look upon the head of the Duke of Suffolk, father of Lady Jane Grey, who was executed on nearby Tower Hill in 1554, and whose head was preserved as a relic here for more than three centuries until its removal to St. Botolph Aldgate where it is now.
The Little Wooden Midshipman, marking Sol Gills' instrument shop told of in "Dombey and Son," is now used as a sign by an instrument maker at 9 Minories E. The firm employing the sign formerly were located in Leadenhall Street, just as was Sol Gills' shop which Dickens has made so real to all of us.
In Wellclose Square beyond the Tower, is a building that is more than three hundred years old, and in it are still to be seen the oldest police cells in London. Under them is the entrance to a subway which tradition says once led direct to the Tower. The house is now used as a club. The cells are in the rear of the building, and reached by a winding stone stairway. They are dark and stifling. Many names and inscriptions are carved on the wooden walls. There is still to be deciphered the name of Edward Burk hanged for murder; that of Edward Ray, December 27, 1758, and another inscription reading "Francis Brittain, June 27, 1758. Remember the poor debtors."
The Tower of London
The Tower of London, quite the most ancient and historic of English fortresses, begun by William the Conqueror, has been successively a royal palace, a State Prison, and is to-day a barracks and an arsenal. The most ancient portion of the fortress, The White Tower, is still standing. In this Tower of London, Richard II. while imprisoned, was deposed; Henry VI. was murdered by the Duke of Gloucester; the Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV., was drowned in a butt of wine; the princes, Edward V. and his brother, were murdered by order of their uncle, Duke of Gloucester, who thereafter took possession of the throne as Richard III. Here Henry VIII. received in state all his wives before he married them; here were imprisoned countless subjects, among them Archbishop Cranmer; Shakespeare's patron the Earl of Southampton, and Prince James of Scotland. Here Sir Walter Raleigh wrote, while a prisoner, his "History of the World." Here were executed Queen Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. On the Thames side may still be seen the double water gate, called the Traitors' Gate, through which prisoners charged with high treason were brought into the Tower. Through this gate passed the princess who was afterwards Queen Elizabeth, exclaiming as she entered: "Here landeth as true a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs; and before Thee, O God, I speak it." Rich in memories, indeed, is this grimmest of grim monuments consecrated by time and the tears and blood of many captives.
Where Trinity Gardens are now, to the west of the Tower and at the end of Great Tower Hill, stood the scaffold where political and state prisoners were sent from the Tower to be executed. With few exceptions, only queens were executed within the Tower walls, so that the greater number of historical executions took place outside them. Here met death, Protector Somerset, Sir John More, Cromwell, Earl of Essex; James Fitzroy, Duke of Monmouth, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and many another. The last execution on Tower Hill, and the last person beheaded in England, was Simon, Lord Lovat, in 1747. In his last moments he said how remarkable it seemed that a great gathering should think it worth while to assemble to see a grey head taken off. A stone in Trinity Square Gardens marks the exact site of the scaffold. These gardens are a touch of pleasing contrast close beside grimy warehouses, and in the daytime the constant din of business life throbs on every side, an offset to their quietness. Otway, the poet, lived and died on Tower Hill, and on Tower Hill William Penn was born.
At the head of Tower Street is the church of All Hallows, Barking, founded by the nuns of Barking Abbey during the reign of Richard I. Bloody Judge Jeffreys, the leader of the Bloody Assizes, was married here, as was also John Quincy Adams. William Penn, born close by, was here baptised.