THE JEWEL HOUSE IN THE TOWER OF LONDON
Campbell Gray photo
The next, and present, abode of the Crown Jewels became the Wakefield Tower, one of the lesser towers on the inner ballium wall, adjoining the Bloody Tower and facing the Traitors’ Gate. The origin of the name has been a subject of some discussion. For many years, indeed for some centuries, the Wakefield Tower was held to have been so named because the prisoners taken at the battle of Wakefield were therein imprisoned. But further examination shows that this tower was never used as a prison, nor could it have contained the number of prisoners supposed to have been incarcerated in it. Moreover, there is some evidence that the name was given to this tower long before the battle of Wakefield. A more reliable conclusion is that it was named after William de Wakefield, one of the King’s Clerks, who was appointed to hold custody of the Exchanges in the Tower in 1344, and very possibly had his office in part of this building.
In ancient days the Wakefield Tower, then named the Hall, formed the entrance to the Royal Palace, which fell into decay during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. She having been a prisoner in the Tower as a Princess, had conceived such a horror for the place that when she became Queen she refused to live there. In previous reigns the King or Queen always lived in the Tower before their Coronation, and thence proceeded in state, preceded by the Knights of the Bath, to Westminster. In the Wakefield Tower is still a small chapel or oratory which was used as a private place of devotion by the Monarch when in residence at the Palace. In this little chapel, whilst kneeling at his prayers, Henry VI was murdered by Richard of Gloucester.
A narrow, winding stair, some of the steps now so worn with age as to be hardly safe, leads down from the adjacent Bloody Tower to the basement. Down these steps the bodies of the two young Princes who were murdered there were dragged, and hastily buried in the basement of the Wakefield Tower. Here they lay for five days when Richard of Gloucester, by whose order they had been murdered, made the somewhat superfluous discovery that the bodies were not buried in consecrated ground. They were hastily dug up and buried close to the south wall of the White Tower, and being there more or less under the shadow of St. John’s Chapel, were considered suitably interred. The Constable of the Tower, Sir Robert Brackenbury, was the only person who knew the secret, and he died with it, being shortly afterwards killed at the battle of Bosworth. It was not till the reign of Charles II that the remains of the two little Princes were accidentally found, and by order of the King removed to Westminster and buried there.
The walls of the Wakefield Tower are eight feet thick, and there is only one entrance, whilst the windows are heavily barred. In these more or less practical days, however, reliance is not placed solely on solid walls, or even on sentries and yeomen, to keep the Crown Jewels in safety. After the St. Patrick’s Jewels had been stolen in Dublin, King Edward VII determined that the Crown Jewels of England should be placed, as far as human prescience could devise, beyond the power of anyone to tamper with them. The most expert mechanical and scientific geniuses, with Messrs. Chubb at their head, were called into consultation, and the result was the invention of the present octagonal-shaped steel casement furnished with steel bars.
It is naturally not allowable to mention what the mechanical safeguards are, but the inexpert or indeed expert thief may certainly count on being guillotined or electrocutioned if he makes the attempt to emulate Colonel Blood’s adventure. It has been a source of some amusement to the warders to watch known burglars—for admission to view the Crown Jewels is open to all His Majesty’s subjects, not excluding burglars—with their faces flattened against the bars thinking, thinking, thinking, how possibly they could get hold of these priceless gems. One indeed, with a deep resigned sigh, was heard to mutter, “Gor’ blimy it ain’t to be done!” So we may hope for the best. Not only, however, are the Crown Jewels guarded by all the resources of science, but soldiers, yeomen warders, and policemen keep watch over them night and day.
Just before the War, amongst other visitors was a German lady, who looked long at the Jewels and carefully examined the steel encasement in which they are exhibited. Then she went back to one of the yeomen on duty and remarked, “You may think those Jewels very wonderful and very wonderfully guarded, but do not be surprised if I say that they will soon belong to our Kaiser.” The yeoman was so taken aback that he did not know what to say, yet made perhaps a better reply than much forethought might have supplied. He said, “I don’t think so, madam. Pass along, please.” This old yeoman was in the Cameron Highlanders at the Relief of Lucknow.
During the Great War the Germans in their first daylight raids made a special target of the Tower of London, clearly marked as it lay below on the banks of another clear landmark, the Thames. That their efforts to hit it were not more successful was a matter of bad luck for them and good for us, for we had then no anti-aircraft guns to drive them off. The first bomb just missed the Tower to the westward, and fell into the dry moat in the part used by the garrison as their drill ground. It penetrated six feet of gravel and rubble, deflecting at a slight angle as it went downward; then it ran nearly level for four more feet, and finally turned upwards at an angle and traversed another eighteen inches. Happily it failed to explode. When with much caution it was dug out tail first it was found to measure 4-1/2 ft. The top 22 in. formed an ordinary percussion shell, such as is fired by field artillery; the rest of the bomb consisted of a brass cylinder filled with a yellow powder. This powder, though perhaps intended for purely incendiary purposes, was doubtless intentionally also of a highly poisonous nature. So poisonous indeed was it that those who touched it were afflicted for months with a species of blood poisoning, which seriously affected their health and produced a painful and irritating skin disease. Indeed, one official was thus affected who had not to his knowledge even touched the infected portions of one of these bombs; he had merely stood close to where a wall was plastered with the yellow powder from an exploded bomb, whilst a strong wind happened to blow grains of it in his face. He came out with the same eruption, though in a less virulent form than the one who had actually man-handled a piece of the bomb.
This bomb will probably be found in the Imperial War Museum, but it seemed to us that the gods intervened to get it there. When the bomb had been dug out urgent messages arrived by telephone and otherwise that no one was to meddle with the blamed thing (I am not sure of the exact wording) till an expert from the Ordnance Department arrived. Arrive he did, and how he ever departed, except in a ring of smoke and glory, puzzles us still. He took up the live shell, and directing everybody to stand well clear, a hundred yards or so away, for fear of accidents, he proceeded to unscrew the percussion fuze at the head of the bomb. This in itself is a delicate operation even for an expert. Apparently the head would not unscrew, but the expert nothing dismayed started hammering and forcing it in a manner which made mere amateurs tremble not only for the intrepid expert, but for the ancient walls of the Tower of London. Finally this philosophic warrior decided that unaided he could not unscrew the head, so he demanded that a taxi should be sent for. Into the taxi entered the gallant gunner and the bomb, and apparently they arrived safely somewhere, for in spite of the censorship, we should probably have heard if he had not.