The first years of Edward III.’s reign were spent, perforce, in the Tower, until he put down Mortimer and assumed the government. Probably the Beauchamp and Salt Towers, and perhaps the Bowyer, were his work. In the ninth of his reign, by commission, dated Berwick, 16th October, 1336, he ordered a survey of the defects of the Tower to be made, and a jury to be empanelled to declare what repairs were needed. This return was made without delay, and is printed by Bayley. It mentions the gate towards St. Katherine’s, the steps and passages upon the wall, a chamber over the Water-gate; “Corande’s” Tower and “Le Moneye” Tower; the chapel of the Tower; the king and queen’s chapel; two turrets over the old gate, one called “La Plummerye”; and the quay opposite the Thames, with the little postern at one end and “Petywales” at the other. Beauchamp, Bowyer, and most of the other towers are not named,—probably because some were not then built, and others, the work of his grandfather, did not need repair. “Le Blanche Tour” seems not to be the keep, called then “Alta turris.” The other parts named are numerous, but evidently belonged to the palace ward, now destroyed. The result of the return was, that the Tower, next year, was put in order and garrisoned. The Close Roll (10 Edward III.) mentions that, in 1337, the sheriffs of London were to pay £40 out of the farm of the city, to be spent on “the great Tower,” then in great need of repair; and the sheriff of Kent was to bring oak from Havering for the works. The sheriffs of Surrey and Sussex also had to provide £20 for the same service.
The Tower was Edward’s chief arsenal. Thither, 1337–8, the sheriffs of London were to send “5 millia ferri et 200 bordas de Estland [Baltic planks], ac centum quarter carbonum maritimorum” (sea-coal), for making anchors for the “Christopher” and “Cogge Edward,” and for certain works on the Tower. (“Abb. Rot. Orig. II.,” p. 116). Edward was at this time much engaged in preparing for foreign wars, and it was to the Tower that he returned suddenly from Tournay, towards midnight, 30th November, 1340, and punished the constable for negligence. Also between 1340 and 1342 he was much at the Tower, and one of his daughters was born here. The records also show that the Mint had a considerable share of the royal attention.
Mr. Hunter has shown (“Arch.,” xxxii., 380) that, as early as 1347, bills were paid for the manufacture, probably two or three years earlier, of “pulvis pro ingeniis”; and in 1346, “ad opus ipsius Regis pro gunnis suis,” 9 cwt. 12 lb. of saltpetre and 886 lb. of quick sulphur were had; so that gunpowder was then, no doubt, manufactured in the Tower.
About the same time the Tower received the first of a series of illustrious foreign prisoners of war. David, King of Scots, taken at Neville’s Cross, was brought here in January, 1347, and remained here eleven years; so late as 1357–8, £2. 12s. 9d. being paid for medicines supplied to him. Later, in the same year with David, came Charles of Blois, nephew to Philip of France; and still later John de Vienne, governor of Calais, and the twelve brave burgesses of that town. Finally, in 1350, here was lodged John, King of France, and the nobles taken with him, and in the same place of safety the £47,171. 1s. 4d., the first instalment of his ransom.
In 24 Edward III., 1350–1, John de Alkeshull had commission to take, throughout the kingdom, “petram, buscam, carbones, maeremium, plumbum, vitrum, ferrum, et tegulam”; that is, stone, wood, coal, timber, lead, glass, iron, and shingle, and all things needful for the king’s works at Westminster, Windsor, and the Tower. How these materials were divided is not known. Windsor probably received the chief share of them.
In 1354, the king proposed to alter the constitution of the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula at the Tower, and incorporate it as a college, with a dean and three canons, instead of a rector and chaplains. This, however, does not seem then to have been effected, as both Richard II. and Henry IV. nominated a rector to the “Free Chapel of St. Peter.” The actual incorporation did not come to pass until the last year of the reign of Edward IV. It was in 1354 proposed that the standards of weight and measure should be kept at the Tower; and this year the king ordered the city ditch to be cleansed, and prevented from overflowing into the Tower ditch. In Stowe’s time the filth was taken off by a sewer from the City ditch.
Appointments of armourers, bowyers, engineers of the war-slings, &c., show that the store of weapons of war continued to be considerable. In 33 Edward III. all the bows, strings, arrows, “hancipes [two-handed winches] pro balistis tendendis,”[10] in the custody of W. Rotherel, in the Tower, are ordered to be packed in chests, quivers, butts, pipes, and barrels, and sent to Sandwich to cross the water with the king. In 1360–2, various sums were spent in repairs of the king’s record-house in the Tower containing the Chancery Rolls: probably the Wakefield Tower.
Richard II. fulfilled the usual custom of lodging a short time in the Tower before his coronation, that he might proceed in state to that ceremony through the City. Here also he took refuge during Wat Tyler’s rebellion, after which Arnold Brocas was paid £3. 6s. 8d. for repairing the door broken open by the common rebels within the Tower. In 1380–1, a code of regulations was drawn up for the better government of the place. In 1385–6, cannon were sent hence to Porchester. In 1387, Richard came here to escape his uncle the Duke of Gloucester, and at Christmas in that year he was blockaded by the rebel lords, to whom he gave audience within the fortress.
Two years later, in 1389, it was from the Tower that the king went to hold a great feast and tournament in London; and here, in 1396, his new queen, Isabel of France, was lodged before her coronation. Here, finally, Richard signed his abdication in favour of Henry of Lancaster. No work at the Tower can positively be attributed to this reign, or the succeeding one of Henry IV.
It appears from the Issue Roll and the Pell Records of 1 Henry V., that breakfast was provided at the Tower at a cost of £2. 16s. 8d. for Thomas, Earl of Arundel, Henry le Scrop, Lord de Roos, and the Mayor of London, commissioners for trying traitors. This Lord de Roos was William, seventh baron, ancestor of a late lieutenant-governor, whose ancestors on the male side—the Fitzgeralds—also frequently partook of the hospitality of the Tower, though in the less agreeable capacity of prisoners.