The Children's Book of London

by G. E. Mitton

THE TOWER OF LONDON—continued

Nearly all the people condemned to be beheaded at the Tower were executed on Tower Hill, which lies outside the walls; only a few who were of royal birth or especially favoured were beheaded inside the walls, where they could not be seen by the great multitude. And the plot of ground outside the chapel is the place where these favoured few were killed. We can stand now on the spot where gentle Lady Jane Grey laid her little head on the block. She was not the first near the throne to have been executed here. Two of the Queens of the bloodthirsty Henry VIII. had died at the same place—Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. Both these Queens had been received here by Henry in great state before their marriages, and little had they thought when they arrived and were greeted with guns firing and flags flying that very soon the bell would be tolling for their death. It is difficult to believe in the cold-heartedness of a man like Henry. Anne Boleyn was a bright, gay little woman; she was the mother of Queen Elizabeth, and she had done nothing whatever to merit death. But Henry had seen someone else he wanted to marry, so he ordered his wife to be beheaded. It is said that he waited under a great tree on a height in Richmond Park, some miles away, to see a rocket fired up from the Tower, which was to announce the death of Anne, and to let him know he could marry Jane Seymour. Anne had only been his wife three years when he tired of her, and she was twenty-nine when she was executed. Four years later the King married Katherine Howard, having had two wives—Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves—in between. Poor Katherine was Queen only for two years, when she followed Anne to the block.

The handsome and gallant Earl of Essex, who had been a favourite of Queen Elizabeth's, also suffered here. He had lost the Queen's favour, and, after having been one of the principal men at the Court, was treated with coldness and disdain. Essex's proud temper could not endure this, and he made plots against the Queen, one of which was to kidnap her and carry her off as his prisoner. Elizabeth heard of this, and sent her soldiers to seize him. Essex had then a house in the Strand, near St. Clement's Church, and he barricaded his house and defied the Queen's soldiers. Nothing could have been more mad. Elizabeth was furious when she heard it. Cannon were placed on the tower of St. Clement's Church, and from there they were fired at the house of the reckless Earl, who was at last forced to submit. He was tried, found guilty of high treason, and condemned to death. But all the time Elizabeth, who must still have cared for the high-spirited Essex, felt sure that he would not really be killed; for long years before she had given him a ring, and told him that whenever he was in great need he had only to send that ring to her, and she would help him. So she expected to receive the ring from him, and was very slow in signing his death-warrant; but the ring never came, so she signed the warrant, and then she recalled it. Yet still there was no sign from Essex. Elizabeth began to grow uneasy, and thought perhaps that the Earl was too proud to ask help from her when he had defied her. Well, if that were so, she could do nothing to save him, for she was a queen, and was too proud to give help where it was not asked for; so she signed the death-warrant a second time. Meantime, Essex was in the Tower, and he had remembered the ring and the Queen's promise; he had been rebellious and he was very proud, but now that he was going to die in the full strength of his manhood it did not seem too hard a thing to do to ask a favour from Elizabeth, who had been so kind to him and was his Queen. After all, he had behaved very badly, and he knew it, and it was right to ask pardon. Perhaps this was what he thought, and he gave the ring to the Countess of Nottingham to take to the Queen. But the Countess of Nottingham did not want the Earl to live; she was jealous of his influence over Elizabeth, and she thought that if she kept back the token Essex would surely die.

So the time slipped away, and Elizabeth in her palace and Essex in his prison both thought bitterly of each other. The execution drew very near, and at last one day in February Essex was brought out to die. Perhaps he thought up to the last minute that a messenger would ride up carrying a pardon from the Queen; but no, no one came, and at last he laid his head on the block, and perished thinking hard things of his Queen. Not long after the Countess of Nottingham herself fell ill, and on her deathbed confessed to Elizabeth the wicked thing she had done. The knowledge that Essex had died believing her to have been faithless to her word so enraged the Queen that she said to the dying Countess: 'May God forgive you, for I never can!'

Many people spent most of their lives in the Tower. We have heard of Sir Walter Raleigh, who was here for fourteen years; but there were others imprisoned much longer. One man, a Duke of Orleans, afterwards King of France, was here for twenty-five years; and Lord Courtenay, son of the Earl of Exeter, who was of the Royal Family and descended from Edward IV., was kept in the Tower almost his whole life for fear that he might lay claim to the crown.

When the King or Queen of England used the Tower as a palace, the part they occupied was quite distinct from the prison. This part is now the Governor's house, and the Governor, who is called the Lieutenant of the Tower, lives in it. Here there are many splendid rooms, including a great council-room, where the King and his nobles used to meet for consultation. Underneath the house is a room where Lord Nithsdale was imprisoned, and the story of his escape from the Tower is one of the most exciting in all history.

In the reign of George I. a nobleman called the Earl of Nithsdale had joined in a plot to restore the Stuarts to the throne. You will remember that after the reign of James II. people said that Prince James was not his son at all, but a baby which had been adopted by the King, who had no son of his own; and as this was generally believed, after the King had been driven into exile, his daughters, the Princesses Mary and Anne, came to the throne and reigned one after the other. When they died the English crown was offered to a distant cousin, who was George I. But many English noblemen and gentlemen said that this was unfair, and that the son of James II. and his son after him should have been King. We can never tell now which was right; but all this caused a great deal of unhappiness and much fighting. Those who took up the cause of the Stuarts were called Jacobites, and among this number was the Earl of Nithsdale. He was taken prisoner, and condemned by King George to die with several others, and he was sent to the Tower, there to wait his fate.

But he had a beautiful and determined wife, who was resolved to save his life. It was in the winter time, and, of course, there were then no trains to carry people swiftly and comfortably through the frosty air. So she started on her journey from Scotland on horseback, and rode as far as Newcastle; but she was not a great horse-woman, and being wearied with her exertions, she there took a coach and proceeded to York, taking with her her faithful maid Evans. But when they got to York they found that so much snow had fallen that the coach could not go on to London at all. Now, all this time the days were passing, and every day that passed made Lord Nithsdale's execution nearer. His poor wife was in a terrible state of suspense; but she did not sit down and despair. She said that if there were no coach then must she ride to London. And so she did—rode about one hundred and eighty miles through all the snow, which was often up to her horse's girths, and at times she thought she would not be able to get through after all. But at last she did, and when she arrived in London her husband was still alive. Never thinking of herself or of her own weariness, Lady Nithsdale went to the Court, and used all the influence she possessed to get King George I. to pardon her husband. But he was an obstinate, cruel little man, and he refused even to hear her, though she flung herself before him and caught at his coat.

Then she saw that there was nothing for it but to help her husband to escape out of that gloomy Tower. She therefore begged permission to go to see him. At first even this was refused her, but she gave the guards money, and at last they let her into the Tower. What a meeting that must have been, and how cheered the husband must have been to think of the strong love that had made his wife do so much for his sake!