There is much difference of opinion as to the original mode of entrance into the White Tower. Probably the principal entrance lay on the south and river side of the Keep, near its western angle, for on the second floor there is a large opening on the exterior of the masonry which has parallel sides, and was doubtless formerly used as a doorway. Near this opening, and on the eastern side of the Keep, is a small door opening into the base of the well staircase. Both Mr Clark and Mr Birch believe that these doors formerly communicated with a building which stood on the south of the White Tower, having its outer entrance at the east end. This building would probably date back to the days of the Normans.
The main entrance of the White Tower opened out on the first floor of the Keep, whence a turnpike staircase led up to the second floor, and downwards to the basement with its dungeons. The mural corridors or passages in the thickness of the walls which encircle the State rooms, are so narrow that only one person could pass along them at a time, which would have been of great advantage in case of an attack on the building, for a small number of men could have defended the White Tower against a host of besiegers. The Normans showed a rare skill in the strategic construction of their strongholds. For instance, in the ruined Castle of Arques near Dieppe, a contemporary building, the plan of its Keep resembles in structure that of the White Tower. These Normans were master builders, and the skilful manner in which they concealed the entrances to their fortresses is well worth study. Their keeps were generally rectangular, and in no instance is the entrance of these towers on the ground floor, or in a conspicuous part of the building. At the Castle of Arques the entrance to the Keep is carefully concealed, as was the case with the White Tower, and is fully 30 feet above the level of the ground, besides being hidden and protected by a massive and lofty wall which forms a part of the Keep. A tortuous passage leads into the heart of the building, but before it could be entered, a very long and almost perpendicular staircase had to be mounted. This staircase commenced in the thickness of the wall of one of the outer counter-forts, placed at the northern angle of the fortress, which wound along the inner face of the Keep, giving access to a landing, beyond which was the passage that led into the fortress. Before the kernel of the Keep could be reached, another narrow passage, cut out of the thickness of the wall, had to be passed; this passage was on the level of the first floor. This style of defensive construction was introduced by the Conqueror and his clerical architect, the quondam monk of the Abbey of Bec in Normandy, who ended his life as Bishop of Rochester; and to these two men we owe the solidity and time-defying strength of the great Norman White Tower.
In order to complete this Norman system of defensive architecture it was necessary to suppress all unnecessary openings, such as windows, in the lower stages of the massive square towers. Consequently, the Norman windows, which were only narrow slits in the masonry, called by the significant name of meurtrières, from the use made of them by the besieged to hurl missiles or pour boiling oil, or lead, upon the enemy beneath, were always restricted in numbers, and were always placed in the upper parts of the Keep. For this reason Sir Christopher Wren, by placing the large windows with their stone facings, now in the White Tower, completely destroyed one of the most characteristic features of its Norman workmanship, an extraordinary act of vandalism for so great an architect. In our day Salvin restored some of the Norman windows on the western side of the White Tower—those belonging to St John’s Chapel—and one regrets that he did not carry out the restoration throughout the building, for in looking at any representation of the White Tower taken before the Great Fire, one sees how much the old Norman Keep has lost in character by Wren’s tasteless substitution of Carolean for Norman windows.
Of the prisoners of State who passed weary years within the White Tower, mention has already been made of Charles of Orleans. Stevenson’s description in his “Familiar Studies of Men and Books,” relating to the imprisonment of the Duke, gives a perfect word-picture: “In the magnificent copy of Charles’s poems, given by our Henry VII. to Elizabeth of York on the occasion of their marriage, a large illumination figures at the head of one of the pages which, in chronological perspective, is almost a history of his imprisonment. It gives a view of London with all its spires, the river passing through the old bridge, and busy with boats. One side of the White Tower has been taken out, and we can see, as under a sort of shrine, the paved room where the Duke sits writing. He occupies a high-backed bench in front of a great chimney: red and black ink are before him, and the upper end of the apartment is guarded by many halberdiers, with the red cross of England on their breasts. On the next side of the tower he appears again, leaning out of the window and gazing on the river. Doubtless, there blows just then ‘a pleasant wind from out the land of France,’ and some ships come up the river, ‘the ship of good news.’ At the door we find him yet again, this time embracing a messenger, while a groom stands by holding two saddled horses. And yet further to the left, a cavalcade defiles out of the Tower; the Duke is on his way at last towards ‘the sunshine of France.’”
Referring to his imprisonment in England at the trial of the Duke d’Alençon, the Duke said, “I have had experience myself, and in my prison of England, for the weariness, danger, and displeasure in which I then lay, I have many a time wished I had been slain at the battle where they took me.”
It was one of Joan of Arc’s hallucinations that could Charles of Orleans be delivered from his captivity in England and restored to France, that country would be delivered from its conquerors. She declared that he was specially favoured by the Almighty, and longed with all the strength of her great heart to restore him to her native land, and said that if there was no other way of freeing him, she would herself cross the sea and bring him back with her. When, after many years, Charles of Orleans was released, the heroic girl had met her martyrdom nine years before. It is a strange coincidence that whilst the Keep of the Tower held the French poet prince within its walls, another Royal captive, James the First of Scotland, was whiling away the days of his imprisonment by writing verses in the Keep of Windsor Castle.
Until quite recently, the collection of arms and armour stored in the White Tower and the adjacent galleries was in a disgraceful state of neglect, and even in a worse condition than that of mere neglect, for the custodians, in their ignorance, gave names and titles to the arms and armour which must have caused infinite amusement to visitors who possessed any knowledge of the subject. The middle-aged may recall the rows of so-called English kings, beginning with the Plantagenets and ending with the Stuarts, seated on wooden horses. If I mistake not, one of these was dubbed Edward I., and yet another mythical gentleman on his wooden steed played the rôle of a “Royal Crusader.” These things were as genuine as Mrs Jarley’s Waxworks. “Previous to the year 1826,” write Britton and Brayley in their history of the Tower, “nothing could present a more incongruous mass of discordant materials than the Horse Armoury of the Tower of London. Armour of the time of Edward the Sixth was ignorantly appropriated to that of William the Conqueror: foot soldiers were ranged between the horsemen, and those humble ciceroni, the warders, ascribed to the various implements of war names and uses, alike unknown, either in ancient or modern warfare.” But better times were at hand, and a great authority on ancient armour, and the owner of the finest collection of it in England, Dr S. R. Meyrick, undertook to arrange the armour in the Tower. Another expert in armour, J. R. Planché, Somerset Herald, and author of an able history of British costume, as well as of many clever burlesques and extravaganzas, drew up a catalogue. But a huge mass of rubbish and spurious armour were allowed even then to remain amongst the historic and genuine specimens. It is only since Lord Dillon undertook the great task, on which he is still engaged, of entirely re-arranging and re-cataloguing the arms and armour in the White Tower, that it can be properly studied and appreciated. The new catalogue, which will be a work of historic importance, is still unpublished, but from the accounts Lord Dillon has written of the collection, and which is published in the excellent “Authorised Guide” to the Tower and its contents, I am indebted for much of the following information.
Horse and Foot Armour (XVIᵗʰ. Century)
Although not to compare in extent or importance with the great collections of Madrid, Vienna, or Turin, the armour in the White Tower must be, to an Englishman, of great interest, for, although none of the suits of armour date further back than the fifteenth century, and but very few single pieces are of an earlier epoch, there are among the former, suits of great beauty and of high historic value, and it is the only national collection of armour that England possesses. As far back as the year 1213 arms and military stores were kept in the White Tower. In that year Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, was commanded to surrender with the fortress “the arms and other stores within”; in the second year of Henry the Third’s reign, a mandate was issued to the Archdeacon of Durham to send to the Tower “twenty-six suits of armour, five iron cuirasses, one iron collar, three pair of iron fetters, and nine iron helmets.” In the reign of Edward II. we find that a certain “John de Flete, Keeper of the Wardrobe in the Tower,” was ordered to deliver up all the armour therein to John de Montgomery. This armour had belonged to Montgomery’s father.