Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And no man see me more.”
The towers of the outer ward are comparatively of but little interest, with the exception of St. Thomas’s Tower or the Traitor’s Gate. This is a large, square building over the moat, the outside of which is guarded by two circular towers, which exhibit specimens of the architecture of the time of Henry III. The gate through which state prisoners entered the Tower is underneath this building.
The rain was falling drearily on the day we visited the Tower. Somber and heavy skies looked sullenly down on the gloomy scene. Thoughts as somber and heavy weighed down our minds as we stood before the Traitor’s Gate; thoughts of countless numbers that had gone in at that gate never to come forth again. In the clang of those iron portals behind them they heard their death knell. The royal, the noble, the illustrious, the pious passed under these frowning battlements, leaving behind grandeur, brilliancy of courts, dreams of glory, home, friends, all that makes life sweet, to receive in exchange, the dungeon, the scaffold, the block, the axe.
They who entered there left hope indeed behind.
Through this gate went Elizabeth, expecting naught but death; dreaming little of the hour when all England should lie within the hollow of her white hand. Under these portals three short years after she issued from the Tower in all the full flush of her pride and triumph, received by lords and dukes, amid the blare of trumpets, and peal of bells and roar of guns. Elizabeth’s hapless mother, Anne Boleyn, returned to the Tower. No nobles in her train now; no burst of music; no chime of bells nor roar of artillery; alone, save with her jailers; her fair fame blackened; her triumphs, glories—all shrunk to this little measure. The husband she had stolen from another, in turn lured from her, wearied of her, longing to be rid of her, hurrying her to her fearful doom with brutal haste.
“A dream of what thou wast; a garish flag,
To be the aim of ever dangerous shot;
A sign of dignity, a breath, a bubble;
A queen in jest only to fill the scene.