THE TOWER OF LONDON
By Harold Sands, F.S.A.

It has been well and wisely said that "the history of its castles is an epitome of the history of a country," but the metropolis may proudly boast that it still possesses one castle whose history alone forms no bad compendium of the history of England, in the great fortress so familiarly known by the somewhat misleading appellation of "The Tower of London," of which the name of one portion (the keep) has gradually come into use as a synonym for the whole. Of the various fortress-palaces of Europe, not one can lay claim to so long or so interesting a history. The Louvre at Paris, though still in existence, is so as a comparatively modern palace, in which nothing now remains above ground of the castle of Philip Augustus, with its huge circular keep, erected by that monarch in 1204. The Alhambra at Granada is of a by no means so remote antiquity, as the earlier portion of it only dates from 1248, while the Kremlin at Moscow only goes back to 1367. Probably the sole building erected by a reigning monarch as a combined fortress and palace at all comparable with the Tower of London is the great citadel of Cairo, built in 1183 by Saladin, which, like it, is still in use as a military castle; but, secure in its venerable antiquity, the Tower is superior to all. The greater portion of the site upon which the Tower stands has been occupied more or less since A.D. 369, when, according to Ammianus, the Roman wall surrounding the city of London was built. At this point, which may be termed its south-eastern extremity, the wall crossed the gentle slope that descended to the Thames bank, on reaching which it turned westwards, the angle being probably capped by a solid buttress tower or bastion. Although Roman remains have been found at various points within the Tower area, it is not likely that any extensive fortification ever occupied the sloping site within the wall at this point, for the original Roman citadel must be sought for elsewhere, most probably upon the elevated plateau between the valley of the Wallbrook, and Billingsgate, where even now there stands in Cannon Street, built into a recess in the wall of St. Swithin's church, a fragment of the ancient Roman milestone, or milliarium (known as "London Stone"), from which all distances along the various Roman roads of Britain are believed to have been reckoned. From what is known of the Roman system of fortification, it is obviously improbable that there should have been any extensive fortress erected upon the site where the Tower now stands. Not only would this have been opposed to the Roman practice of placing the arx, or citadel, as far as possible in a central and dominating position, but in the present instance it would actually have been commanded by higher ground to the north and west, while to the east free exit to the open country would have been seriously impeded by the extensive marshes (not as yet embanked and reclaimed) that then skirted the northern bank of the Thames.

The Tower of London.
Engraved by Hollar, 1647.

According to the Saxon Chronicle,[1] King Alfred "restored" London in 886, and rebuilt the city wall, where it had become ruinous, upon the line of the ancient Roman one; and, until the Norman Conquest, it seems to have remained practically unaltered, nor does it appear to have been damaged by the various Danish attacks in 994, 1009, and 1016,[2] though frequently repaired afterwards during the Middle Ages. Without the wall was a wide and deep ditch, while between the edge of the ditch and the foot of the wall was the characteristic "berm," or external terrace, about ten feet in width.[3] There is every reason to suppose that this wall and ditch extended right across what is now the inner ward, or bailey of the Tower, as far as what was then the river bank, to a point somewhere near the site of the present Lanthorn Tower "k," where it turned to the west; for when, in 1895, the range of buildings of fourteenth century date (then known as the Great Wardrobe, "3") that formerly concealed the eastern face of the White Tower was removed, part of the ancient Roman wall was found to have been preserved within it, and a fragment, having the usual bonding courses of Roman tile bricks, has been spared, which may now be seen above ground close to the south-east angle of the keep, together with the remains of the Wardrobe Tower "s." If a line is drawn northward from this point[4] across the present moat, it will be found to meet what remains of the old city wall, which is still partly visible above ground in a yard known as "Trinity Place," leading out of the eastern side of Trinity Square, on Great Tower Hill. Such Roman remains as have been found within the Tower area do not tend to favour the supposition that any large buildings, save ordinary dwellings of the period, ever occupied the site. On his first approach to the city from Kent, when Duke William discovered that so long as he was unable to cross the Thames London could not be immediately reduced, after burning Southwark in order to strike terror into the citizens, he left it a prey to internal dissensions, and having in the meantime received the submission of the ancient Saxon capital of Winchester, he passed round, through Surrey, Berkshire, and Hertfordshire, by a route, upon which the ravages of the Normans are clearly indicated in Domesday Book,[5] to a position on the north of London, thus gradually severing its communications with the rest of England, so that neither men nor convoys of provisions could enter its walls. Placing camps at Slough, Edmonton, and Tottenham, William himself remained some distance to the rear of these last with the main body of the army, and it seems probable that the actual surrender of London took place at or near Little Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire,[6] some four miles to the east of Hatfield, and then about eighteen miles to the north of the city, which could be seen in the distance from the high ground hard by.

According to Orderic, William, after his coronation at Westminster, spent some days at Berkhampstead, during which "some fortifications were completed in the city for a defence against any outbreaks by its fierce and numerous population."[7] Meagre in details as is the history of this early period, it would appear from the foregoing passage that William caused two castles to be erected, one at either end of the city, hard by the river bank, the western one becoming the castle of that Ralph Baynard who gave his name to it and to the ward; the eastern one (after the building of its stone keep) receiving the appellation of the Tower of London.

When erected on new sites, the early castles seem to have consisted of a bailey, or court, enclosed by wooden palisades, and a lofty circular mound, having its apex crowned by a wooden tower dwelling, also within a stockade, the whole enclosed by a ditch common to both; but though nothing remains of these early castles in London, it seems probable that the mound was dispensed with, and that the angle of the wall was utilized to form a bailey, the side open to the city being closed by a ditch and bank, crowned by stout palisades of timber, while the Roman wall would be broken through where the ditch abutted upon it at either end, the whole bearing a strong resemblance (allowing for the difference in the site) to the castle of Exeter. Orderic goes on to say that William at once built a strong castle at Winchester, to the possession of which he evidently attached greater importance than that of London, where the great stone keep was probably not even commenced till quite a decade later, though Pommeraye, in a note to his edition of Orderic, tells us "that it was built upon the same plan as the old Tower of Rouen, now destroyed."

The advantages of the site selected for the Tower were considerable, the utilization of the existing Roman wall to form two sides of its bailey, its ditch isolating it from the city, while it was so placed on the river as to command the approach to the Saxon trade harbour at the mouth of the Wallbrook, then literally the port of London, and with easy access to the open country should a retreat become necessary.