The Tower of London, (Vol. 1 of 2)

by Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower

The succeeding monarch Edward II., frequently occupied the Tower, leaving his queen and children within the fortress for safety in 1322, whilst he invaded Wales; and it was in the Tower that his eldest daughter was born—Jane of the Tower, as she was styled on account of the place of her birth. She lived to marry David Bruce and to become Queen of Scotland in 1327. During this reign the once powerful order of the Knights Templar fell into unspeakable ruin, the Tower becoming the prison of all the knights of the order who had been arrested south of the Tweed, their Grand Master dying there. Besides these there were many prisoners of note taken in Scotland and Wales, and mention is made of a woman having been imprisoned there for the first time. The lady who gained this unpleasant celebrity appears to have richly deserved her incarceration. On the occasion of a visit made to the shrine of St Thomas at Canterbury by Queen Isabella and her retinue, the royal pilgrim, on her return journey to London, was obliged to crave the hospitality of the châtelaine of Leeds Castle in Kent. Lady Badlesmere, for such was the name of the lady of the Castle, not only refused to admit the royal party, but gave orders for it to be attacked, and several of the Queen’s servants were killed. As a result of this conduct upon the part of the strong-minded Lady Badlesmere, Leeds Castle was taken, its governor hanged, and the inhospitable lady herself was conveyed to London, and occupied a prison in the Tower.

Amongst the Welsh prisoners in the Tower towards the close of Edward’s reign were the two Lords Mortimer of Wigmore and of Chirk, the former of whom, making his escape and gaining France in safety, returned at the head of an army. Edward had thrown himself into the Tower, but fled to Wales when he heard that Mortimer and the Queen—his most implacable enemy—were in arms against him. The King was captured, and soon afterwards murdered at Berkeley Castle. Meanwhile Mortimer had seized the Tower and beheaded the Bishop of Exeter, whom Edward had left in charge, had taken the keys from the Constable, Sir John Weston, and, releasing the prisoners, gave the Tower into the keeping of the citizens of London. After Edward the Second’s murder, his son, the young King Edward the Third, was kept in a state of semi-captivity in the Tower by his mother, Queen Isabella, and her paramour Mortimer. Edward, however, soon showed the strength of his character, and, after capturing Roger Mortimer and his sons at Nottingham in 1330, carried them to the Tower, where they were promptly hanged.

The French and Scottish wars waged by the third Edward brought many State prisoners to the Tower. From France came the Counts of Eu and Tankerville, taken at the close of the siege of Caen in 1346, together with three hundred burghers of that town. From Scotland came David Bruce, with a large following of his nobles, Sutherland, Carrick, Fife, Menteith, Wigton, and Douglas, captured by Percy at the Battle of Neville’s Cross in 1346. Froissart and Rymer describe the huge escort of twenty thousand armed men which guarded the captive Scottish King, mounted on a black charger, on his arrival at the Tower on 2nd January 1347, how the streets were crowded with eager sightseers, the City companies drawn up clad in their richest liveries, and Sir John Darcy, the Constable, receiving the King at the Tower gate. Bruce remained a prisoner in the fortress until he was liberated on the payment of an immense ransom, the companions of his imprisonment being the brave defender of Calais, Jean de Vienne, with twelve of its principal citizens, after the siege and capture of that city. Eleven years later, in 1358, another sovereign was a prisoner in the Tower, John, King of France, with his son Philip, remaining there for two years after the Battle of Poitiers, until the Treaty of Bretigny set them free in 1360.

A minute survey of the Tower had been made in 1336, and in the following year orders were given by Edward for repairs therein, “on account,” the King said, “of certain news which had lately come to his ears, and which sat heavy at his heart; the gates, walls, and bulwarks shall be kept with all diligence, lest they be surprised by his enemies.” He ordained that the gates of the fortress should be closed “from the setting till the rising of the sun.” But in spite of these royal commands, it appears that the Tower was allowed at this period to fall into disrepair; for, three years after these orders had been issued by Edward, we find him, on his second return from warring in France, landing secretly one November night at the Tower, and finding the place so ill-guarded that he had the Governor and some of the other officers imprisoned, amongst them being the Lord Chancellor, who combined that office with the Bishopric of Chichester. About this time Edward’s Queen, Philippa, was brought to bed of a daughter in the Tower, but the little Princess, who was named Blanche, died in her infancy, and was buried in the Abbey Church of Westminster.

CHAPTER IV

RICHARD II.

As I have pointed out in the Introduction to this book, reliable historical details regarding the Tower are very meagre up to the date of the reign of Edward III., but with the reign of Richard II. the story of the Tower becomes of interest. Holinshed describes at some length the splendours of the new King’s coronation. How the youthful monarch, who was “as beautiful as an archangel”—as the life-size portrait of Richard in Westminster Abbey proves—clad in white robes, issued from the Tower surrounded by a vast retinue of knights and nobles. He tells us of the streets through which the royal cortege took its way to the Abbey, all adorned with tapestry, the conduits running with wine, and the pageants performed in the principal thoroughfares. Shortly after this Wat Tyler’s Rebellion broke out, and the young King with his mother sought refuge in the Tower. How the revolt ended is too well known to require telling here at length—how the mob surged angrily round the fortress, “at times,” as Froissart writes, “hooting as loud as if the devils were in them,” how Lord Mayor William Walworth advised Richard to sally forth and himself attack the rebel rout while they were asleep and drunk, and how the young sovereign decided to meet them at Mile End. How during his absence some of the rioters broke into the Tower, massacred the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon of Sudbury, who, with Sir Robert Hales and some of the courtiers, had taken refuge in the Chapel in the White Tower, and how these were butchered; of the pillage of the royal apartments and the insults which the King’s mother, the widow of the Black Prince, was compelled to endure—all this has been told scores of times since old Froissart wrote his veracious account of these violences which read like a page from the French Revolution of 1789.

Yet, often as this tale has been told, it has never been more vividly described than by the pen of George Macaulay Trevelyan, who in this, his first work, “England in the Age of Wycliffe,” has given grounds for believing that the literary mantle of his father and of his famous great-uncle has descended upon him. In this book are the following passages relating to the peasant rebellion in 1381. Of those who had taken shelter in the Tower in those days of terror, Trevelyan writes: “There was but one ark of safety, where many whose blood was sought had already taken refuge. Gower compares the Tower of London during this terrible crisis to a ship in which all those had climbed who could not live in the raging sea. It had been the King’s headquarters for the last two days. It was from the Tower steps that he had been rowed across to the conference at Rotherhithe. His mother was with him in the famous fortress, as were Treasurer Hales and Chancellor Sudbury, for whose heads the rebels clamoured; his uncle Buckingham and his young cousin Henry, who was destined to depose him; the Earls of Kent, Suffolk, and Warwick; Leg, the author of the poll-tax commission, now trembling for his life; and, last but not least, the Mayor Walworth. But the noblest among them all was the tried and faithful servant of Edward III., the Earl of Salisbury, a soldier who had shared in the early glories of the Black Prince, a diplomatist who had dictated the terms of Bretigny to the Court of France; he seems to have held aloof in his old age from the intrigues of home politics, but in the imminent danger that now threatened his country he acted a part not unworthy of the name he bore. One man was absent from this assembly of notables, who, if he had been present, would assuredly never have left the Tower alive. John of Gaunt had good reason to be thankful that, during the month when England was in the hands of those who sought his life, he was across the Border arranging a truce with the Scots.

“By the evening of Thursday, a great mob was encamped on St Catherine’s Hill, over against the Tower, clamouring for the death of the ministers who had there taken refuge. Sudbury was the principal victim whom they demanded. The most horrible of all sounds, the roar of a mob howling for blood, ever and again penetrated into the chambers of the Tower, where prelates and nobles ‘sat still with awful eye’ (Froissart). The young King, from a high turret window, watched the conflagrations reddening the heavens. In all parts of the city and suburbs, the flames shot up from the mansions of those who had displeased the people. Far away to the west, beyond the burning Savoy, fire ascended from mansions in Westminster; away to the north blazed the Treasurer’s manor at Highbury. Close beneath him lay the rebel camp, whence ominous voices now and again rose. Returning pensive and sad from these unwonted sights and sounds, the boy held counsel with the wisest of his kingdom, shut up within the same wall.”

Then follows the account of the attempted escape from the Tower of the Archbishop during the following night, or rather in the early dawn of the next day. Sudbury had resigned the Great Seal into Richard’s keeping; but this had no effect in calming the rage of the mob. In vain did the Archbishop attempt to break from his prison; but as he appeared on the Tower stairs, he was seen by the rebels from St Catherine’s Hill, and obliged to return. Trevelyan then goes on to describe the interview between Richard and his rebellious subjects at Mile End, when the young monarch conceded their demands, and granted them a general pardon. But meanwhile a great tragedy had taken place within the fortress. “The rebels,” continues Trevelyan, “broke into the Tower. Authorities differ as to the exact moment; some place it during, and some after, the conference at Mile End. But it is, unfortunately, certain that no resistance was made by the very formidable body of well-armed soldiers, who might have defended such a stronghold for many days even against a picked army. These troops were ordered, or at least permitted, by the King to let in the mob. It appears that part of the agreement with the rebels was that the Tower and the refugees it contained were to be delivered over to their wrath. The dark passages and inmost chambers of that ancient fortress were choked with the throng of ruffians, while the soldiers stood back along the walls to let them pass, and looked on helplessly at the outrages that followed. Murderers broke into strong room and bower; even the King’s bed was torn up, lest someone should be lurking in it. The unfortunate Leg, the farmer of the poll-tax, paid with his life-blood for that unprofitable speculation. A learned friar, the friend and adviser of John of Gaunt, was torn to pieces as a substitute for his patron. Though the hunt roared through every chamber, it was in the Chapel that the noblest hart lay harboured. Archbishop Sudbury had realised that he was to be sacrificed. He had been engaged, since the King started for Mile End, in preparing the Treasurer and himself for death. He had confessed Hales, and both had taken the Sacrament. He was still performing the service of the Mass, when the mob burst into the Chapel, seized him at the altar, hurried him across the moat to Tower Hill, where a vast multitude of those who had been unable to press into the fortress greeted his appearance with a savage yell. His head was struck off on the spot where so many famous men have since perished with more seemly circumstance. The Treasurer Hales suffered with him, and their two heads, mounted over London Bridge, grinned down on the bands of peasants who were still flocking into the capital from far-distant parts.”