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

by Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower

“Among the old records of the Mint a discoloured parchment has been discovered, which is described as ‘An exact survey of the ground plot or plan of His Majesty’s Office of the Mint in the Tower of London.’ It bears the date February 26, 1700, and is of special interest as having presumably been prepared by order of Sir Isaac Newton, who was appointed Master of the Mint in 1699, having previously held the office of Warden.... The Mint buildings were situated between the rampart, which is bounded by the moat, and the inner ward or ballium of the fortress, which they entirely surrounded, except on the river frontage.... There are ample data as to the nature of the machinery and appliances which filled the various workrooms at the time when the plan was prepared. The more important machinery would be the rolling mills. The rolling mills were drawn by horsepower, and the rolls were of steel and of small dimensions. The coining presses were screw presses, and must have been the same as were introduced by Blondeau in 1661, under the direction of Sir W. Parkhurst and Sir Anthony St Ledger, Wardens of the Mint, at a cost of £1400. Blondeau, who greatly improved the system of coining, did not, however, invent the screw press, as Cellini described it accurately in 1568.”

The Wakefield and Bloody Towers.

In 1698 Sir Isaac Newton writes from the “Mint Office, October 22nd,” as follows:—“Sir, Pray let Mr James Roettier have the use of the great Crown Press in the Long Press Room for coyning of the Medalls, and let some person whom you can confide in, attend to see that Mr Roettier make no other use of the said press room than for coyning of medalls.—To Mr John Braint, Provost of the Moniers.”

Sir Isaac was evidently suspicious of the uses that Roettier might make of the Crown press, and not overconfident of the honesty of the old Dutch medallist. We shall have more to say regarding Roettier when describing the Tower under the Stuart king’s Restoration.

It is uncertain if Sir Isaac Newton occupied the house of the Master of the Mint in the Tower, although it is recorded in the Conduit MSS. that Halley once dined with Sir Isaac at the Mint. At the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, Newton had a house in Jermyn Street, St James’s. The lodgings in the Tower of the Master of the Mint were immediately to the north of the Byward Tower, whilst those of the Warden were to the left of the Brass Mount, on the north of the Jewel or Martin Tower.

The debasement of the coin of the realm, especially during the reigns of the Tudor Sovereigns, caused great loss to the State, the matter becoming so serious that Latimer denounced this criminal practice from St Paul’s Cross, Sir John Yorke being then Master of the Tower Mint. In 1550–51 it is recorded that there was “great loss, 4000 weight of silver, by treason of Englishmen, which he (Yorke) bought for provision for the minters. Also Judd, 1500; also Gresham, 500; so that the whole came to 4000 pound.” There is a letter to the Treasurer, dated 22nd August 1550, ordering him “to waie and cause to be molten downe into wedges all such crosses, images, and church and chapelle plate of Gould as remains in the Towere.” This letter was accompanied by a warrant signed by Henry VIII. for “VIJM pounds appointed to be delivered to Sir John Yorke for such purposes as his Lordship knoweth.” This act of spoliation of all the Church treasure in the Tower by the rapacious Henry, accounts for none of the plate in the Chapel of St Peter’s dating further back than the reign of Charles I.

The famous Traitor’s Gate is perhaps the most historic plot of ground in England, for here some of the noblest of our race have played the last scene but one of their lives. More tragic pathos attaches to this black water-gate than to the Bridge of Sighs in Venice; it is more deeply dyed with gloom than the glacis of Avignon, the dungeons of St Angelo, or the Austrian Spilberg. But a few steps had to be traversed by the prisoners, when landed at these steps, before they entered the Bloody Tower on the opposite side of the Ward, not to pass thence until the day of their execution. The Traitor’s Gate was the principal of the Barbicans or water-gates of the fortress; it commanded the passage between the Thames and the moat. The stone arch which spans Traitor’s Gate springs from two octagonal piers, and is 61 feet across. On the old steps, that can still be traced below the modern stone stairs by which they are overlaid, many an illustrious victim landed from the barge, in which the prisoners of State were generally taken to and from their trial at Westminster.

Within one of the circular turrets over the Gate, on the south-east, are the remains of an oratory, the piscina being still visible in the wall. It was before this tower, on the night of St George’s Day 1240, that the gateway with the adjacent wall of St Thomas’s Tower suddenly fell to the ground. In the following year, on the same anniversary, the newly-built tower and gate again fell prone. That such a catastrophe should occur twice on the night of the 23rd of April was attributed by the Londoners to supernatural causes; and rumour spread that on that very night (Mathew Paris is the authority) the spectre of an Archbishop, crozier in hand, had appeared to one of the Tower priests whilst standing near St Thomas’s Tower. After gazing sternly at the priest and on the walls of the tower then rebuilding, the spectre struck the stones with his crozier, exclaiming, “Why build ye these?” and down fell the newly-erected tower and wall. The spectre was supposed to be St Thomas of Canterbury, from whom the tower took its name, but after the building had arisen for the third time, the restorer has been the only person who has meddled with them.