“That’s the Brick Tower,” said Mrs. Pitt, pointing to it with her umbrella, as she spoke. “There’s where Lady Jane Grey was imprisoned, and there Sir Walter Raleigh lived during his first stay at the Tower. It was when he was in the Beauchamp Tower, however, that he burnt part of his ‘History of the World,’ the work of many years. It happened in a curious way! Do you know the story? He was at his window one morning and witnessed a certain scene which took place in the court beneath. Later, he talked with a friend who had been a nearer spectator of this identical scene, and they disagreed entirely as to what passed. Raleigh was very peculiarly affected by this little incident. He reasoned that if he could be so much mistaken about something which had happened under his very eyes, how much more mistaken must he be about things which occurred centuries before he was born. The consequence was that he threw the second volume of his manuscript into the fire, and calmly watched it burn. Think of the loss to us! Poor Raleigh! He was finally beheaded, and I should think he would have welcomed it, after so many dreary years of imprisonment. He is buried in St. Margaret’s Church, beside Westminster Abbey, you know.”
“Was there a real palace in the Tower?” inquired Betty, while they retraced their steps under the Bloody Tower and back toward the entrance. “Isn’t there any of it remaining?”
“Yes, there was a palace here once, for royalty lived in the Tower through the reign of James I. No part of it now exists, however. It stood over beyond the White Tower, in a part which visitors are not now allowed to see.”
On a hill just outside the Tower, in the center of a large, barren square, is a little inclosed park with trees and shrubbery. Here stood the scaffold where almost all of the executions were held. The place is now green and fruitful, but it is said that on the site of the scaffold within the Tower, grass cannot be made to grow.
As they walked toward a station of the “Tube,” an underground railway, John suddenly heaved a great sigh of relief and exclaimed:
“Well, I tell you what! I’ve learned heaps, but I don’t want to hear anything more about executions for a few days! What do you all say?”