The Story of London

by Henry B. Wheatley

William I., William II. and Henry I., all three inhabited the Tower, but it was not till the reign of Stephen that its value as a place of refuge was proved.

With the Empress Matilda at Winchester and King Stephen at London the state of public affairs, with sieges and countersieges, in which neither party gained any great success, came to a deadlock. Stephen, in 1140, sought safety in the Tower in close proximity to his trusty followers—the Londoners, but in the following year he was made a prisoner at Lincoln. The Londoners attended the synod at Winchester and requested the King’s release, but without avail. Geoffrey de Mandeville, Constable of the Tower of London (whose faithless conduct in these civil wars has been fully set out by Mr. Horace Round),[94] had been made Earl of Essex by Stephen, but when the Empress came to London he had no compunction in transferring his allegiance to her, for which conduct she loaded him with honours. He was, however, short-sighted in his action, for Matilda treated the Londoners with such contumely that they rose against her and drove her from the city. They also attacked Mandeville in the Tower, but this Mr. Facing-both-ways, finding that the Empress Matilda had fled, and the Queen Matilda (Stephen’s wife) taken her place in London, saw no objection to supporting the latter’s cause. Stephen was soon afterwards released, and he again honoured Geoffrey de Mandeville. No amount of special favour, however, was sufficient to keep this man to his allegiance, and he planned a revolt in favour of the Empress. This came to naught, and the King captured the fortifications erected by the Earl at Farringdon and took him prisoner. Mandeville took no more part in public affairs, and ended his life as a marauding freebooter in September 1143. Thus ignominiously came to a conclusion the career of a man who held a foremost place in London. He was not wise in his conduct, because in the words of the Empress’s charter to him, he made the Londoners ‘his mortal foes.’ As Dr. Sharpe says of these same Londoners, they ‘throughout the long period of civil dissension were generally to be found on the winning side, and held, as it were, the balance between the rival powers.’[95]

In John’s reign London opened its gates to the forces of the Barons, organised under Robert Fitz-Walter, Castellan of London, as ‘Marshal of the army of God and Holy Church.’ During the period that the Barons were at war with John, Prince Louis of France lived in the Tower prior to his renunciation of all right of sovereignty in England, and his return to France.

Henry III., in 1236, summoned the Council to meet him in the Tower, but the Barons had so little faith in their King that they refused to assemble there. The King was satisfied to be safe in the Tower in 1263, while Simon de Montfort, with the barons, pitched tents at Isleworth. The Londoners were distinctly disloyal, and Stow tells us that ‘when the Queene woulde have gone by water unto Windsore, the Londoners getting them to ye bridge in great numbers, under the which she must passe, cryed out on her, using many vile reprochfull words, threwe durte and stones at her, that shee was constrained to returne again to the Towre.’[96]

In Edward I.’s reign Raymund Lully, the alchemist, is said to have taken up his residence in the Tower at the King’s desire, and to have performed in the royal presence the experiment of transmuting some crystal into a mass of diamond or adamant, of which the King is said to have made little pillars for the tabernacle of God. The biographers of Lully, however, express the belief that he never visited England.

Edward II. seldom visited the Tower, except when he sought shelter from his subjects. His Queen gave birth there to her eldest daughter, who was known as Jane of the Tower. His second son, John of Eltham, who was born on August 15, 1316, was appointed Warden of the City of London and Warden of the Tower when he was ten years of age. In 1328, a year after his father’s death, John of Eltham was created Earl of Cornwall, and in 1336 he himself died.

The first years of Edward III.’s reign were spent in the Tower, and the King was forced to remain there till he had put down Mortimer and was able to assume the government himself. He made many additions to the buildings, and Clark supposes that he built the Beauchamp and Salt Towers, and perhaps the Bowyer. The King took great pride in the Tower, which he made his chief arsenal, and strongly fortified and garrisoned. Hence his anger in 1340 when he unexpectedly returned to England and found the Tower unguarded. His first act was to imprison the Constable and other officers for their negligence. The Mayor, the Clerk of the Exchequer, and many others whose duty it was to raise or receive the subsidies which had been granted were thrown into prison.[97]

The Tower stands out very prominently in the history of the reign of Richard II. We have already seen in the second chapter what crimes were perpetrated there during the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381.

In 1390 a grand international tournament was arranged, when many foreigners of distinction became the guests of the King in the Tower.

On the 29th of September 1399, in the Council Room of the White Tower, occurred that sad scene when Richard in his kingly robes, sceptre in hand and crown upon his head, abdicated his throne, saying: ‘I have been King of England, Duke of Aquitaine and Lord of Ireland about twenty-one years, which seigniory, royalty, sceptre, crown and heritage I clearly resign here to my cousin, Henry of Lancaster; and I desire him here in this open presence in entering the same possession to take the sceptre.’ So closed the career of a King whose sun rose with so much promise, only to set in misfortune and leave behind him the recollection of one of the greatest disappointments of history.