“Whilst this ruffling continued, Syr Richard Cholmly Knight, Lieutenant of the Tower, no great friende of the citie, in a frantyke fury losed certayn pieces of ordinance, and shot into the citie; whiche did little harme, howbeit his good will apeered.” This choleric knight died in 1544.
Monument of Sir Richard Cholmondeley and his Wife in Sᵗ. Peter’s Chapel.
On the north side of the chancel is a handsome double monument to the memory of Sir Richard Blount and to his son Sir Michael; both these Blounts were Lieutenants of the Tower. Sir Richard, clothed in armour, is represented as praying; behind him kneel his two sons, whilst facing him, upon their knees, are Lady Blount and two daughters. Sir Richard died in 1564. Sir Michael, whose effigy, also clad in armour, was placed near that of his father thirty-two years later, and his family, consisting of his wife, three sons and one daughter, are also devoutly kneeling. Below the Blount monument is a little inscription to the memory of Lyster Blount, a child of two years old: it ends with these hopeful words, “Here they all lye to expect ye coming of our sweet Saviour Jesu. Amen, Amen.”
Against the south wall is a black marble tablet inscribed to the memory of Sir Allen Apsley,[5] who was Lieutenant of the Tower in the time of James and Charles the First. His daughter was that Mrs Hutchinson whose name will be remembered by her admirable memoirs of her husband Colonel Hutchinson, who was imprisoned in the Bloody Tower, where she shared his imprisonment. Sir Allen died in 1630. The first Earl Bathurst (Lord Chancellor) was descended from him, and it was he who built Apsley House. On the same wall are mural tablets to the memory of Sir John Burgoyne, Field Marshal and Constable of the Tower, who died in 1871, and is buried in the crypt of the chapel; also to Lord De Ros, the last Deputy-Lieutenant of the Tower, who died in 1874, and to whose book on the fortress allusion has often been made in these pages. Among other good work done by Lord de Ros was to replace the tombstone of brave old Talbot Edwards, who so nearly lost his life in defending the Crown jewels when they were seized by Blood. This stone, which had been cast aside and lay among a heap of rubbish in front of the Beauchamp Tower, after being used as a paving-stone up to the year 1852 in front of the houses which up to that time had almost hidden that tower from the Green, was replaced in the chapel. It bears the following inscription: “Here lieth ye body of Talbot Edwards, Gent.: late Keeper of his Ma’ᵗˢ Regalia who dyed ye 30 of September 1674, aged 80 years and 9 moneths.” Neither in life nor in death was this brave old Keeper of the Crown well treated. Charles the Second settled a handsome pension on the scoundrel Blood—hush-money probably, for it is within the bounds of possibility that Charles was a party to Blood’s attempt—whilst the sole reward of honest old Talbot Edwards, who was half-killed in guarding the treasures of which he had charge, was the consciousness of having done his duty. The Communion plate dates from the reign of Charles the First and Charles the Second, and it is singular to find that instead of the sacred initials being engraved on these vessels only the Royal monogram of C. R. with a crown appear upon them. Severely simple in shape and devoid of any ornament, this Sacramental plate is historically interesting, for these cups and plates have been used at the solemn hour when the Blessed Sacrament was administered to more than one illustrious prisoner on the eve of his execution. There is good reason for believing that Monmouth and William, Lord Russell used these sacred vessels shortly before mounting the scaffold.
Tomb of the Blount Family in Sᵗ. Peter’s Chapel.
At the back of the chapel of St Peter, and at the north-western angle of the Inner Ward, stands the Devereux Tower, which contains two storeys, the lower one being of massive masonry. This tower dates from the reign of Richard the First. In the Elizabethan survey of the fortress it is named Robyn the Devylls Tower, and in later times it was known as the Develin Tower, and as such it appears in Haiward’s plan. No record has come down as to the meaning of these names, but the present appellation dates from the reign of Elizabeth, when Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was a prisoner there. The upper part of the tower is modern, and modern windows have taken the place of the old loopholes in the 11 feet thick walls, a change which has destroyed the character of the building; formerly it was most gloomy and forbidding. A small winding staircase within the tower leads to a couple of prisons constructed in the thickness of the Ballium wall. A secret passage is supposed to have led thence, to the Flint Tower which stands to the east of the Devereux Tower, communicating also with the vaults under St Peter’s Chapel. Nothing remains, however, in the present modernised state of these passages and prisons to indicate their former appearance. Early in the nineteenth century the lower floor of the Devereux Tower was used as a kitchen and other offices connected with the ordnance; the upper portion was occupied by the Master Furbisher of the Small Arms. The old kitchen, beneath which is a dungeon, has a fine vaulted ceiling.
The Flint Tower lies due east, at a distance of 90 feet from the Devereux Tower, but as it was found to be in an entirely ruinous state in 1796, the old fabric was pulled down and the present ugly brick tower rose in its place. The old tower had been known by the unflattering name of “Little Hell,” probably from the noisomeness of its dungeons, and it had the evil reputation of having the worst prisons in the fortress. Another 90 feet from the Flint Tower stands the Bowyer Tower, of which only the base is ancient, the remainder of the building being modern; this tower dates from the reign of Edward the Third, and it was here that the Duke of Clarence is traditionally said to have been drowned in a butt of Malmsey (Malvoisie) wine. According to those learned historians of the Tower, Britton and Brayley, who wrote in the early part of the nineteenth century, there was a vault in a dungeon in this tower closed by a trap door, which opened on a flight of steps; from these steps a narrow cell led into a secret passage made in the thickness of the Ballium wall. This was one of the many secret passages which ran below ground, and of which, as has already been noticed, an important one was discovered when the Main Guard building was demolished in 1899. Mr G. J. Clark, a great authority in these matters, has stated his belief that there were several of these secret passages in the fortress. One of these, he thinks, ran between the White Tower and the King’s House, and Father Gerard’s account of the way he was led to and from the White Tower and the Governor’s or King’s House points to an underground passage between those buildings. It has been surmised that a subterranean passage led from out the Tower below the Thames to the Southwark side of London; in the Beauchamp Tower a secret passage was discovered in the thickness of the Ballium wall, where persons might have been placed to watch and overhear all that went on within the tower.[6]
The Bowyer Tower was so named because it was the dwelling of the royal maker of bows, and the place where he turned out the Long Bow, as well as the Cross Bow, and many other mediæval weapons of destruction, such as the Balistar, the Scorpion, and the Catapult. In 1223 one Grillot made here the “balistar corneas,” as that mysterious weapon is described in an old record, and for his labour he was rewarded by the gift of a new gown for his wife.