The Story of London

by Henry B. Wheatley

Henry VI. had a sorry time in the Tower, but the incidents connected with the constant vicissitudes, which at one time raised the fortunes of the Yorkists and at another those of the Lancastrians, caused so many changes in the occupation of the Tower that it is impossible to note here all that took place. When the Yorkist Earls of Salisbury, Warwick and March returned to England in 1460 they marched on London, but the Common Council determined to oppose their entrance into the city. This arrangement was agreed on with Lords Scales and Hungerford who, with others, held the Tower for King Henry. The citizens, however, after a time began to doubt the wisdom of supporting the imbecile Henry, so on July 2 they admitted the Yorkist earls into the city. While London was thus on the side of the Yorkists the Tower remained true to the King, but every effort was made to obtain the surrender of the fortress. The Tower was invested by land and water, and the garrison was starved out and had to surrender.

In the following year the Earl of March became King as Edward IV., and made himself agreeable to his subjects. When in 1464 he married Elizabeth Woodville the citizens showed their respect for the Queen by riding out to meet her and escorting her to the Tower, besides presenting her with a gift of 1000 marks.

A change occurred in 1470, when Edward had to fly and Henry was restored. Henry VI., no longer a prisoner, was removed from his cell to the palace, but soon afterwards he was taken to the Bishop of London’s palace at St. Paul’s. In the following year, however, Edward recovered the throne, and was let into London by the Recorder and some aldermen. In May 1471, when Edward IV. was out of the city, Thomas (the natural son of William Nevill, first Lord Fauconberg, Earl of Kent), known as the Bastard Falconbridge, headed a rising of Kentish men and marched on London in support of Henry VI. He was supported by a fleet in the river. With the help of a company of shipmen and other followers he made an attempt to force Bishopsgate, Aldgate, and the Bridge. Some of his followers got through Aldgate, but the portcullis being let down those who had entered were cut off from the main body and lost their lives. A few days after this unsuccessful assault (May 21) King Henry was murdered in the Tower.

The name of Richard III. was intimately associated with the Council Chamber, and the consideration of the particulars of his violent methods helps us to obtain a vivid picture of the dark passages filled with armed men ready to do the wicked will of their employer.

The most memorable of these scenes occurred when the Council was sitting. Suddenly there is a cry of ‘Treason’ from the adjoining apartment. Gloucester rushes to the door and is met by a party of soldiers, who at his command arrest all the Council but the Duke of Buckingham. The astonished nobles have scarcely time to recover from their surprise before they see from the windows of their prison Lord Hastings beheaded on Tower Green.

In the following reign, when Henry VII. fixed the day for the coronation of his Queen—November 25, 1487—she came by water from Greenwich two days before, attended by the Mayor, Sheriffs and Aldermen, and many citizens, chosen some from each craft, wearing their liveries, in barges ‘freshly furnished with banners and streamers of silk.’ One of the barges, called the Bachelors’, contained ‘many gentlemanly pageants, well and curiously devised to do her highness sport and pleasure.’ The King received the Queen at the Tower.

Much might be said of the doings of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Queens Mary and Elizabeth, James I. and Charles I., but there is no room in this book for a complete history of the Tower, and we must therefore hurry on in order to give some notice of a few of the celebrated prisoners.

There could never have been much accommodation in the White Tower (so called on account of the white-washing it received in the reign of Henry III.) as a suitable residence for the sovereign, so that as the centuries passed and more comfort was expected by all classes, Kings and Queens would naturally expect to be better cared for. A palace was therefore built in the inner ward, and the Lanthorn Tower formed a part of this palace, containing as it did the King’s bed-chamber and his private closet. These buildings appear to have fallen into decay in the reign of Elizabeth, by whom or by James the great hall was removed. Some were destroyed by Cromwell, and others by James II., to make room for a new Ordnance office, and the remains of the Lanthorn Tower were taken down late in the eighteenth century[98] (1788).

That royalty was not always well-housed may be seen by a recorded case in the reign of Edward II. Johannes de Crombwelle, Constable of the Tower, gave great offence to the citizens by reason of certain of his high-handed actions, and in the end he was dismissed from his office, but the reason given for his dismissal was not on account of the offensive acts complained of, but for neglect of duties, by which the rooms were allowed to remain out of repair, and because the rain came in upon the Queen’s bed.[99]

Some particulars are given in the Liber Albus respecting the legal position of the Tower. When the Exchequer was closed the Mayor was to be presented at the Tower, and the Pleas of the City with the Crown were sometimes held there; and when this was the case the city barons were to place their own ‘janitors’