From this it will be seen that the intention of one criminal in the reign of Queen Elizabeth was carried out by another nearly three hundred years later, in the reign of Queen Victoria.

THE END.

APPENDICES

The Great Court of the Tower.

APPENDIX I

DISPUTES BETWEEN THE CITY OF LONDON AND THE OFFICIALS OF THE TOWER AS TO THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF THE TOWER

“This dispute as to the Liberties and Privileges of the Tower began as early as 1465–66, the fifth of Edward IV. Early in Queen Elizabeth’s reign it was renewed; the points of controversy are referred to in the above letter (a letter from the Lord Mayor to the Lords of the Council complaining of the conduct of Sir William George, Porter of the Tower of London, regarding his usurpation of the Liberties and Franchises of the City by ‘compelling poor victuallers strangers, coming to London by ship or boat with fish, fruit, or such victuals, to give him such a quantity as pleased him to take, as two or three cod-fish from each boat, etc., without payment. Such as refused he caused to be imprisoned in the Tower, whereby the victuallers were discouraged to come to the City, and their number decreased, to the great hurt of the markets and the victualling of the City, especially at this present time of Lent’). The Council referred the question to the consideration of the Lord Chief-Justice of the Queen’s Bench (Sir Christopher Wray), the Lord Chief of the Common Pleas (Sir Edward Anderson), and the Master of the Rolls (Sir Gilbert Gerard), who gave their opinion upon some of the privileges claimed by the Lieutenant, but not upon the question of boundaries. They reported with respect to the claims of freedom from arrest by action in the City, and protections granted by the Lieutenant to officers and attendants in the Tower, and not obeying writs of habeas corpus; that in their opinion, persons daily attendant in the Tower, and serving the Queen there, should be privileged, and not arrested on any plaint in London, but this should not apply to writs of execution or capias utlagatum; that the Lieutenant ought to return every habeas corpus out of any court at Westminster, so that the justices before whom it should be returned might either remand it with the body, or retain the matter before them, and deliver the body. They further gave their opinion that the claim of the Lieutenant, that if a person privileged in the Tower were arrested in London, he might detain any citizen found within the Tower until the other was delivered, was altogether against the laws of the realm. The Lords of the Council made an order settling these controversies, which was dated from Nonsuch, October 3rd, 1585. The question of boundaries still remained in dispute. Stowe quotes documents, which he says he had seen among the Records in the Tower, from which it would appear that the bounds in controversy were at Little Tower Hill, the Postern, and East Smithfield on one side, and on the other the extent of Tower Hill, and towards Barking Church. The City claimed the Postern Gate in the end of the London Wall by the Tower, and houses built near to the Wall and Postern; all the void ground within the Postern Gate—viz. the whole hill and ground where the scaffold for the execution of traitors stood, and where the Sheriffs of London received prisoners from the Tower to be executed (from which place the boundary stone had been removed), with the Watergate and the gardens under the London Wall. The City also claimed that the whole ground and soil called Tower Hill without the Postern Gate, being parcel of East Smithfield, was theirs. They likewise objected to the Lieutenant holding pleas in the court of the Tower, that being only a Court Baron, and not a Court of Record; also to the exactions taken in the name of prizage of victuallers bringing victuals, fuel, and other things by water. The Lieutenant disputed the original position of the Postern in question, and asserted that the City’s proofs brought from their own manuscripts, etc., were insufficient to dispossess any subject, much less the King. He also submitted the presentment made by an inquest held anno 27 Henry VIII., before Sir Anthony (William) Kingston, High Constable of the Tower, which stated that the bounds began ‘at the Watergate next the Ramshead, in Petty Wales; and so streyched North unto a Mudwall called Pykes Garden, on this side of Crutched Friars; and so strait East unto the Wall of London, with nine gardens above the Postern, and above the Broken Tower, right unto the midst of Hog Lane End, and so strait unto the Thames, and so six foot without the Stairs at the East-gate of the Tower towards St Katherine’s.’ In the reign of King James the Second the subject was again before the Privy Council, who on the 12th May 1686, directed the boundaries to be ascertained, which was done, and the broad arrow in iron, with the date, set on the houses. On the 13th October in the same year a warrant was issued by King James the Second, for a charter to be prepared for confirming the same. This Charter, dated 10th June 1687, exempted the limits defined in the schedule (and which were practically those claimed by the Lieutenant) from the jurisdiction of the City, and of the Justices, etc., of Middlesex; directed that the Governor of the Tower, or his deputies, should execute and return all writs, processes, etc., within the limits; that a Session of the Peace should be held four times a year within the Liberty of the Tower, and that the Justices of the Peace should have power to commit traitors, felons, etc., to Newgate. It also established a Court of Record within the Liberties, the Steward of the Court being the Coroner, the Governor of the Tower having the appointment of the officers. Whilst the duties of the Justices of the Peace, as defined by the charter, have been from time to time added to by the Acts 13 George II. cap. 19. sec. 7, 37 George II. cap. 25, sec. 13–16, and by sundry licensing Acts, their powers have been limited by the Police Act (10 George IV. cap. 44) and supplementary Police Acts. The Central Criminal Court Act, 4 and 5 William IV. cap. 36, included the Liberty of the Tower within the jurisdiction of that Court, and took away the power of its Justices to try at their Sessions offences under the Act. This, however, has been somewhat modified by subsequent Acts.”

APPENDIX II

The
Behaviour and Character
of