Duke of Orleans, who was taken prisoner at the Battle of Agincourt. This interesting picture is in one of the MSS. (Roy MS. 16 F. 2) in the British Museum. As was the custom of the early artists, a succession of incidents in the life of the prisoner are depicted in the same drawing. The duke is seen at a turret window, then writing at a desk in a large chamber. At the foot of the White Tower he is embracing the messenger who brings him his ransom. He is then seen mounting his horse, and he and a friendly messenger ride away from the Tower. Lastly, we see him in a barge with lusty rowers pulling down the stream for the boat which is to carry him home to France.
There were two places of execution, that on Tower Hill (under the authority of the governors of the city), and the other on Tower Green within the Tower walls. Edward IV. set up a scaffold and gallows upon Tower Hill, but the City of London insisted upon their ancient right of dealing with offenders within their own precincts, so the King’s scaffold and gallows were taken down with many apologies, and the sheriffs maintained their ancient privileges of headings and hangings beyond the Tower walls. The city boundary existed within the Tower, and in James I.’s reign a question arose as to whether or no Sir Thomas Overbury’s murder was committed within the city. As his apartment was situated on the west of the boundary, the criminals came under the jurisdiction of the city.
The place of execution on Tower Green is a spot of hallowed memories. It was marked off and railed in by command of Queen Victoria. Lord Hastings was probably beheaded here in 1483, and among the distinguished names of those who suffered on this spot are Anne Boleyn in 1536; Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, daughter of the Duke of Clarence and mother of Cardinal Pole in 1541; Katherine Howard, and Jane, Viscountess Rochford, sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn, in 1542; Lady Jane Grey in 1554; and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, in 1601.
The Chapel of St. Peter’s ad Vincula was probably first built by Henry II., although the earliest mention of it occurs in the year 1210. It was burnt in 1512, and rebuilt as we see it now about 1532. The great interest of this chapel centres round the names of the great who having suffered in life now rest in this temple of the dead. A tablet on the wall contains a list of the most distinguished of these names.
The Beauchamp Tower is one of the most interesting of the buildings, as it is full of inscriptions on the walls cut by the prisoners.