Henry V. revived the old glories of the prison by sending hither Charles, Duke of Orleans, taken at Agincourt. An illumination of the period, given by Lord de Ros, shows the duke to have been lodged in the state rooms in the White Tower, and shows also the four windows of the great hall, which adjoined Wakefield Tower on the east.
The strong monarchs employed the Tower as a prison, the weak ones as a fortress; and under Henry VI. it appears in this latter capacity. In 1460, Lord Scales, the king’s governor, was besieged by the Earl of Salisbury, Lord Cobham, and Sir John Wenlock. The city men attacked the west front; Wenlock, from St. Katherine’s; and Cobham, with the artillery, from the Southwark shore, firing across the river. When the south ditch was cleared out and levelled in 1842–3, several round shot of iron and about thirty of Kentish rag stone, from 4½ inches to 10 inches, and in one case 17 inches, diameter, were found, which are supposed to have fallen there on this occasion.
Edward IV. is reputed to have built a bulwark outside the west gate by the Lion Tower. In the eleventh of his reign payments were made for arms and ammunition for the defence and for work upon the fortifications of the Tower. The workmen were brought from Calais. In the same year money was allowed for the expenses of Henry VI., then prisoner in the Tower. Richard III., during his brief reign, pressed masons and bricklayers to complete certain repairs at the Tower.
Probably the walls and towers were allowed to decay by Henry VII.; for Henry VIII., in 1532, ordered a survey to be made with a view to a general repair, which was executed shortly afterwards. The repairs were very considerable, and the masonry was executed in Caen stone backed with brick, and, unfortunately, very much of the Tower seems to have been so faced or cased, and otherwise very seriously altered. The survey is very minute, and throws light upon much that is now destroyed. Mention is made of “Burbedge Tower,” on the wall between Bowyer and Brick Towers, evidently the present Brick Tower, the then “Brick” being the present Martin Tower. “St. Martin’s” Tower was then the outer gate, now “Middle” Tower. The present Salt Tower was then Julius Cæsar’s Tower, and the old Lanthorn Tower was called New Tower. Wakefield is called “the tower where the king’s records lie,” and “Bloody” was then Garden Tower. “Byward” was “the Wardyng Gate.” Two timber bridges, evidently drawbridges, were to be renewed at the west entrance. The keep was then, as now, the White Tower, distinguished by its four turrets.
Byward Tower had a narrow escape in 1548. A Frenchman who lodged in “the round bulwark called the Warden Gate, between the west gate and the postern, or drawbridge,” blew up the bulwark, and himself, with gunpowder. It was rebuilt. There was also in the reign of Edward VI. a drawbridge between Iron and Traitors’ Gate, evidently Cradle Tower. This was used for the reception of great prisoners, the strong iron gate (St. Thomas’s) being almost out of use.
The buildings of the palace probably had fallen into decay in the reign of Elizabeth, by whom, or by James, the Great Hall was removed. Other buildings followed. Many were destroyed by Cromwell and many by James II. to make room for a new Ordnance office, and the remains of the Lanthorn Tower were taken down late in the last century. The White Tower underwent a final disfigurement at the hands of Sir C. Wren in 1663, who Italianised its openings, cased a part of its exterior, and rebuilt two of its turrets. Sir Christopher’s work may be traced throughout the fortress by the Portland stone introduced by him, just as the work of Henry VIII. is indicated by the use of brickwork and rough-cast, and the practice of closing the joints of the masonry with chips and spawls of flint. The ditch was cleansed in 1663, and the quay refaced.
The Tower, at the commencement of the present century, was an extraordinary jumble of ancient and later buildings, the towers and walls being almost completely encrusted by the small official dwellings by which the area was closely occupied. A great fire in 1841 removed the unsightly armoury of James II. and William III. on the north of the inner ward, but the authorities at the time were not ripe for a fire. The armoury was replaced by a painfully-durable Tudor barrack, and the repairs and additions were made with little reference to the character of the fortress. More recently, the general improvement in public taste has made its way even into the Tower. Mr. Salvin was employed upon it until his death, and more recently many modern buildings have been removed, many ancient foundations laid open, and very extensive repairs and some absolutely necessary restorations have been effected, under the skilful and very judicious care of Sergeant-Major Andrews.
Thus much of the Tower as an ancient and very curious military structure, which, throughout the additions, alterations, and subtractions of eight centuries, still preserves the character of an early fortress, and very much of original and peculiar work. It may be that, in some respects, the Tower cannot be compared with others of the great feudal castles of England. It does not, like Dover and Bambro’, stand on the edge of a lofty cliff, commanding an equal expanse of land and water. It has not the solitary grandeur of Corfe, nor its old associations with the Anglo-Saxon times. It does not, like Conway, Caernarvon, Beaumaris, and Harlech, bear the impress of one mind in its design, of one hand in its execution; neither can it boast the rich surroundings of Ludlow, Warwick, or Kenilworth, nor the proud pre-eminence of Windsor, the present residence of the sovereign, the seat of the oldest and most illustrious order of Christian chivalry, the cynosure of four fair counties, rising amidst a rich mantle of forest verdure diversified with the silver windings of the Thames, and the venerable walls and courts of Eton.
The Tower of London can put forth none of these various claims to our attention, but it is not the less the most interesting fortress in Britain. It is the work of the great Norman conqueror of England, founded by the founder of her monarchy. It is the citadel of the metropolis of Britain, and was long the most secure residence of her greatest race of kings. Here they deposited the treasure of the empire and the jewels and regalia of their crown. Here they secured the persons of their prisoners, and minted and stored up their coin. Here the courts of law and of exchequer were not unfrequently held; here the most valuable records were preserved; and here were fabricated and preserved long-bow and cross-bow, sword, lance, and pike, armour of proof, balistæ, scorpions, and catapults, then the artillery and munitions of feudal war. Here, too, as these older machines were laid aside, was first manufactured that “subtle grain,” that “pulvis ad faciendum le crak,” and these “gonnys and bombards of war,” which were to revolutionise the military art, until they themselves should be superseded by later inventions, of which the ancient keep is still the grand storehouse and armoury of the country.
But the Tower has memories surpassing even its associations with the military glories of the state. It has been the prison and the scaffold of not a few of the best and bravest of English blood. Percy and Mortimer, Hastings and Clinton, Neville and Beauchamp, Arundel, Devereux, Stafford, and Howard,—those “old stocks who so long withstood the waves and weathers of time,”—have here found a grave. Here the great house of Plantagenet flourished and was cut down. Here England’s Elizabeth learned the uses of adversity; and here Raleigh solaced his confinement with the composition of that History which has made his name great in letters as in naval enterprise.