The entries extend from the first to the tenth of the reign, and relate to nine years, during which about £610 was spent on the Tower and its houses. The recipient was sometimes Wm. Puincell, the constable; at others, Jordan de Turri, Richard le Duc, John Fitz-Erlecum, and others. Sometimes under the king’s brief, sometimes the chancellor’s. In one year, lime cost £46. 9s. 6d. In the first of the king, 50 marcs were spent upon the “Royal Chapel in the Tower.” The ditches are mentioned 5 Richard I.
Longchamp’s reign was so short that it is difficult to understand how he managed to execute as much as he undoubtedly did. The rolls of the early years of Richard I. do not indeed show above one or two hundred pounds of outlay, but the chancellor had the command of other funds; and one cause of his excessive unpopularity with the citizens was the avidity with which he took upon himself to tax them.
Prince John, when he succeeded to the throne in 1199, was not inattentive to the wants of the Tower. In his two first years, Elias, the engineer, was employed upon the king’s houses and works, and similar entries appear in the fifth, tenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth years. In the sixteenth the sum was considerable—£117. 15s. 8d.; and in the seventeenth the charge, £12, is for building the mud or “clay wall between the Tower [precinct] and city,” which wall is often referred to in later surveys. On the whole, the Pipe Rolls of the reign are scanty as regards the Tower, but they are in some degree replaced by entries upon the Mise, Close, and Patent Rolls, which show that it was kept up as a royal residence, and that the king occasionally stayed there.
In 1209 and 1210, 9s. 4d. were given in alms to one hundred poor there; and in the latter year Osmund, a knight bound for Poictou, received a gift of ten marcs, and, to buy a horse, a hundred shillings from the king. This was given in the “Church of St. Peter at the Tower of London”; and is the earliest known mention of that building. Here also, on Sunday, the morrow of St. Philip and Jacob, Steffan, the messenger of the emperor, received half a marc on his return to his lord, and other payments were made here.
In 1212 the Archdeacon of Durham and Philip de Ulecote are ordered to send in all haste to London thirty carratas (cartloads) of lead for covering the Tower; and, in 1213, among orders for repairs for the castles of Rochester, Canterbury, and Guildford, is mention of carriage of timber and “busca” (faggots), for the works of the Castle of Dover and the Tower of London. It was about this time that the city ditch was deepened, and widened to a breadth of 200 feet. In 1215, Henry de Nevill was to supply ten oaks for the works at the Tower, five from within Havering Park and five from outside it.
It was also in 1215 that the barons seized upon London, and that the Tower was given over to be held by the Archbishop of Canterbury until Assumption Day as a pledge for the king’s performance of certain engagements. The rights of either party to the Tower were suspended, and the king was not to reinforce the garrison. The great charter was signed 15th June. The barons, however, continued virtually in possession until the arrival of the Dauphin, to whom it was given up in 1216, and by him held until he left the kingdom.
Mr. Hardy, in his valuable “Itinerary of King John,” shows that he executed instruments at the Tower upon seventy-two days during his reign of seventeen years and a half. In 1204, he was there 28–30th January, 27–30th May, 2–3rd November. In 1205, 28th April and 13–16th August. In 1207, 2nd July. In 1208, 21st January, 10th, 19th–21st February. In 1209, 9th October. In 1210, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 19th February, 2nd May, and 27th October. In 1211, 1–3rd and 18th April. In 1212, 18–20th May; 2–4th June; and 20–22nd September. In 1213, 16th and 17th April; and 21–23rd, 26–29th December. In 1214, 2–5th, 12th, 13th January; and 29th–31st October. In 1215, 1–6th and 14–18th March; and 19th April.
As Henry III. has usually been regarded as the builder of much of the Tower as it now stands, and did undoubtedly execute considerable works there, it will be convenient here to examine into the probable condition of the fortress at the time of his accession.
It has been shown, from structural evidence, that the Wakefield Tower, and probably the shell of Devereux Tower, and perhaps that of Bell Tower, are at least as old as the reign of John; and that there is great reason to regard the original Wardrobe and Lanthorn Tower and its curtains, and the Cold Harbour wall and Gate towers, and the contained palace, all now destroyed, as of the age of Wakefield Tower. Also, as St. Peter’s Church existed in the reign of John, and was “apud Turrim,” or within the walls, these, between the Bell and Devereux Towers, where they pass close to the church, were also then existing. We should thus have the wall of enceinte of the present inner ward, from Lanthorn Tower to Wakefield, Bell, and Devereux Towers, as the extent of the fortress on the south and west fronts. The north curtain, now mostly destroyed, seems to have been of the same date as is the east curtain, though probably some of the towers upon these—the Bowyer, Jewel, Constable’s Broad Arrow, and Salt—are of later reigns.
Then there was the ditch deepened and widened by Longchamp, with a wall on the line of that of the present outer ward. The quay and the river front, from Iron Gate to Byward, with St. Thomas’s Tower, were not then constructed, nor was the Bloody or Gatehouse Tower. Probably the inner ward wall abutted direct upon the river shore.