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

by Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower

St. Thomas’s Tower, from the Wharf.

Jack Cade’s insurrection was the beginning of a long series of civil strifes which at last broke out into the civil war that raged from 1450 to 1471; this was the War of the Roses, so called from the badges worn by the opposing factions, the Lancastrians wearing the Red, and the Yorkists the White Rose.

At the outset of the war, London was at the mercy of a riotous mob, headed by the redoubtable Cade, who had assumed the name of Mortimer. The charge of the Tower had been confided to Lord Scales and Sir Mathew Gough. Lord Saye, who was at this time Lord High Treasurer, was a prisoner in the Tower, an Order in Council having placed him there, as a means, it was hoped, of pacifying the rioters, who, however, attacked the fortress from the Southwark side of the river, aided by Cade and his followers, but retreated at nightfall across London Bridge. Scales, with the help of the Lord Mayor, made a sortie from the Tower, barricading the bridge, whilst Gough commanded the rebels’ position across the water from the battlements of the fortress. At this juncture the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had taken shelter within the Tower, called for a general amnesty, and this being granted, the rebellion died out of its own accord, Cade being captured and killed by the Sheriff of Kent, and his followers dispersed to their homes. Meanwhile the King had sunk into a state of semi-idiocy, his mind, never a strong one, having doubtless been affected by the unceasing trouble around him; besides, he was the grandson of Charles VI. of France, so that his mental condition is easily accounted for. The Duke of Somerset, grandson of John of Gaunt, now took the foremost place in the Council, but after a short period of seclusion, Henry was again able to act as King.

CHAPTER VI

THE WARS OF THE ROSES

There is much that is tedious in the accounts of the Wars of the Roses. One battle is gained by the Lancastrians, and the next by the Yorkists, this continuing for years in a see-saw fashion. At first the war was not marked by much bloodthirstiness, but after the Battle of Towton no quarter was given on either side, the prisoners being murdered in cold blood, the most conspicuous amongst them being beheaded. This summary method of disposing of the captives accounts for the small number of State prisoners in the Tower during the twenty years of internecine warfare which almost annihilated the peerage. Here are a few of the principal battles fought throughout the length and breadth of England between 1455 and 1461. In 1458 was fought the battle of St Albans, in which Somerset was defeated and slain. In 1459 Lord Audley was slain by Salisbury, who gained the Battle of Blore Heath; in 1460 the Yorkists, led by Salisbury, Warwick, and March (afterwards Edward IV.), defeated the King at Northampton and took him prisoner; in the same year Margaret’s army routed the Yorkists at Wakefield, where the Duke of York was killed, and Salisbury was beheaded at Pontefract. In 1461 the Lancastrians were defeated at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross by Edward, the son of the Duke of York, and the future King; and in that same year the decisive Battle of Towton was also gained by him, the Lancastrian cause receiving its death-blow. Three months later, Edward was crowned by the style of Edward the Fourth, and his brothers George and Richard were made Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester respectively, whilst poor, harmless, half-witted Henry was proclaimed a traitor.

When Henry was told that he had no right to the style of King, he replied: “My father was King; his father also was King; I myself have worn the crown forty years from my cradle; you have all sworn fealty to me as your sovereign, and your fathers have done the like to mine. How, then, can my right be disputed?” “By force,” they might have replied.

Queen Margaret, an infinitely more masculine being than the poor weak King, her husband, would not give up the struggle, and even after the Battle of Towton had destroyed the cause of her house, she raised its standard in the North. Warwick crushed her army, and after the Battle of Hexham in 1471, Margaret was forced to flee with her son. She is traditionally said to have owed her escape to a robber, on whose generosity she had thrown herself. Henry, meanwhile, was led a prisoner to the Tower, being treated, by Warwick’s orders, with every indignity. His gilt spurs were struck off when he reached the fortress, and his legs tied to the stirrups of his horse, which was led round a tree in front of the Tower which then served the purpose of a pillory. Once inside his prison the fallen monarch appears to have been treated with some kind of humanity, being allowed to see some of his friends, the use of his breviary, and the company of a favourite bird and dog. His prison was in the Wakefield Tower, and in one of the chambers—now containing the Regalia—was the oratory in which tradition has it that he was murdered by Gloucester.

Later on Queen Margaret and her daughter-in-law, Lady Anne Neville, were also imprisoned in the Tower, but the Queen never saw her husband again, for although they were in the same building they were rigorously kept apart. After an imprisonment of five years, part of which was passed at Windsor, Margaret was allowed to return to her own country, on the payment of a heavy ransom, where she died in 1482.

All through the Wars of the Roses the Tower had been the scene of some important events. When in 1460 the Earls of Warwick, Salisbury, and March arrived in London from Calais, Lord Scales was in command of the Tower. Scales was Lancastrian in his politics and sympathies, and after vainly attempting to keep the three Earls from entering the city, blockaded himself within the fortress; and it was only when the news of King Henry’s having been taken prisoner came to his knowledge that Lord Scales surrendered his trust into the hands of the Yorkists.