Horse and Foot Armour (XVIIᵗʰ. Century.)
Beneath the western wall of the White Tower is a varied park of artillery. Here, placed side by side, are cannon taken from out the wreck the Mary Rose, a warship lost off Spithead in 1545, with others from the Royal George, which sank in the same place in 1782. Here is a Portuguese cannon made in 1594 and taken at the siege of Hyderabad in 1843; and guns made for Napoleon at Avignon, with the crowned N engraved upon them. What is curious amongst the old English cannon of the sixteenth century, is their being made of iron bars welded together and bound round with iron hoops. One of these belonged to the Mary Rose, and still holds within its barrel a stone shot. Here is also a breech-loading cannon made early in the sixteenth century, and two triple brass guns made for Louis XIV. bearing his device of the sun and the motto, “Ultima ratio regum.” The old French and English mortars are also of interest, the earliest of the latter being dated 1686; one was used by William III. at the siege of Namur in 1695. There is a French mortar made by Keller, Louis’s gun-founder at Douai, in 1683. In 1708 there were sixty-two guns on Tower Green and the river wharf: the latter were fired on festivals; they are now used for saluting from “Salutation Battery,” which faces Tower Hill. Amongst these weapons of destruction one is almost certain to find a pair of venerable ravens hopping about; they are a pair of weird and eerie fowls, and one might imagine the spirit of some guilty wretch had been re-incarnated under their black feathers.
In Mr W.H. Hudson’s book, entitled “Birds of London,” these and other birds are described as follows:—“At the Tower of London robins occasionally appear in autumn, but soon go away. The last one that came, settled down and was a great favourite with the people there for about two months, being very friendly, coming to window-sills for crumbs, and singing every day very beautifully. Then one day he was seen in the General’s garden wildly dashing about, hotly pursued by seven or eight sparrows, and, as he was never seen again, it was conjectured that the sparrows had succeeded in killing him. The robin is a high-spirited creature, braver than most birds, and a fair fighter, but against such a gang of feathered murderous ruffians, bent on his destruction, he would stand no chance.
“The Tower sparrows, it may be added, appear to be about the worst specimens of their class in London. They are always at war with the pigeons and starlings, and would gladly drive them out if they could. It is a common thing for some foreign bird to escape from its cage on board ship and to take refuge in the trees and gardens of the Tower, but woe to the escaped captive and stranger in a strange land who seeks safety in such a place! Immediately on his arrival the sparrows are all up against him, not to ‘heave half a brick at him,’ since they are not made that way, but to hunt him from place to place until they have driven him, weak with fatigue and terror, into a corner where they can finish him with their bludgeon beaks.”
It is worthy of notice that no mention is made of the Tower in Domesday Book, London being altogether omitted from that work. Of all the Norman strongholds and castles which rose in London along the river-side, of Montfichet, Baynard’s Castle, the old Palace at Blackfriars, or of Tower Royal, Stephen’s palace in Vintry Ward, no trace remains, and of them all the great Norman keep of the Conqueror remains little altered in outward form from what it was eight centuries ago.
Horse and Foot Armour (XVIIᵗʰ. Century.)
Tower Hill
Tower Hill, which lies to the north-west of the Tower, is more closely allied with the history of the fortress than any other spot within the City boundaries, and the short space intervening between it and the entrance gate of the Tower was, in most cases, the final journey of the State prisoners condemned to death. Writing of Tower Hill, Stow, the antiquary, says it was “sometime a large plot of ground, now greatly straightened by encroachments (unlawfully made and suffered) for gardens and houses. Upon the hill is always readily prepared at the charge of the City, a large scaffold and gallows of timber, for the execution of such traitors or transgressors are as delivered out of the Tower, or otherwise, to the Sheriffs of London, by writ, there to be executed.”