London City

by Walter Besant

From the time the Tower combined the functions of a palace and a prison it became customary for every new sovereign to ride in state to the coronation at Westminster through the City from the gate of the Tower. Thus it was that Queen Anne (Boleyn), who had figured in such a procession, was afterwards a prisoner and was here condemned to death and beheaded on Tower Green. Here again her daughter, Elizabeth, after having been a prisoner during the reign of her sister Mary, passed out to her coronation, pausing on the way at the Lion Tower, where in a short prayer she compared herself to Daniel emerging in safety from the lion’s den. The last English king who thus went to Westminster was Charles II. He and his brother James II. were lodged in the Tower on several occasions of public danger, but the Civil War, then recently ended, had shown plainly the weakness of mediæval fortification against artillery. At the time of the death of Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, who in 1683 committed suicide or was murdered in his lodgings in the Lieutenant’s House, both Charles and his brother were in the royal apartments.

When the Tower ceased to be used as a palace, the old buildings to the south of the Keep fell into ruin and have now all disappeared. They included an annex of some size and importance which contained a few Roman bricks, possibly taken from such parts of the wall as here reached the river’s bank. The garden disappeared with the hall and the wardrobe, and even the names of the buildings adjoining were changed. The Garden Tower is now called the Bloody, and the odd reason used to be given that it was because here the sons of Edward IV. were smothered. This is extremely unlikely, and the name of the gateway was more likely derived from the supposed suicide of Henry Percy, eighth Earl of Northumberland, who was found dead in his bed with three bullets through his heart on June 21, 1585. The Hall Tower, since the disappearance of the adjoining Hall (in which Queen Anne Boleyn was tried), has been renamed The Wakefield, and here the regalia, described below, are now shown. This is the sole relic, with the White Tower, of the Norman buildings of Gundulf. There is a Norman crypt, but the upper structure has been “restored” away, with large but unsightly windows, and there is a bridge for the convenience of the Keeper of the Crown Jewels, whose apartments are in St. Thomas’s Tower, usually renamed The Traitors Gate. Between the archway of this gate and the Byward Tower, the chief entrance from the outer ward, is a long wall, facing which, on the north side of the narrow roadway, the buildings of the Lieutenant’s Lodgings look over the walls of the inner ward, ending with the Bell Tower. The bell now does duty at St. Peter’s Church. The roadway is continued to the north as Mint Street, which further on used to be known as Irish Mint Street. From the corner under the Bell Tower we see the Beauchamp Tower, and beyond it again the Devereux. There is a walk along the leads of the roofs connecting the Bell with the Devereux, and here, it is said by the romance writers, Lady Jane, confined in the Lieutenant’s Lodgings, used to meet her husband, who carved her name in his chamber in the Beauchamp Tower. The Lieutenant’s Lodgings have of late been renamed The King’s House, and in the late reign, the Queen’s House, a change for which no reason has ever been assigned.

The towers along the south curtain of the outer ward are the Cradle, so named probably from an arrangement for receiving supplies from a boat on the Thames, the Well, and the Develin or Galleyman’s, so named after an old warder. On the north side are three comparatively modern forts, called Legge’s Mount, North Bastion, and Brass Mount, the first from George Legge, Lord Dartmouth, Master General of the Ordnance in 1682.

On the eastern side of the inner ward are some old and, for the most part, unrestored buildings known as Martin’s Tower, at the north-eastern corner; Constable’s Tower, Broad Arrow, and the Salt Tower, already mentioned. The regalia used to be kept in the Martin, which was also known as the Burbidge or Brick Tower. Here in 1671 the crown, then in the custody of Talbot Edwards, was stolen by Colonel Blood, who carried it nearly to the gate of the Byward Tower before he was stopped. He was eventually pardoned by Charles II. The Broad Arrow shows us what some of us remember—the Beauchamp before Salvin’s ruthless “restoration.”

The Church of St. Peter ad Vincula was so called from the Romanist saint’s day, August 1, on which it was consecrated, and not from any allusion to the Tower as a prison. It has often of late been described as a Chapel Royal, but if there is any Chapel Royal in the Tower it is St. John’s. What we now see was built in 1512, after a fire. The old church was long vacant because of the murder, by the parson, of a friar named Randolph in 1419. Edward IV. proposed to place here a dean and chapter, but died before anything was arranged. Edward VI. put the church under the care of the Bishop of London, and it has since usually been served by a chaplain appointed by the Crown. The organ was formerly in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall. There are few monuments, but the burial-places in the chancel of the headless bodies of two of the wives of Henry VIII., as well as of the Dukes of Somerset and Northumberland and some others, are marked by an encaustic pavement, highly inappropriate to what Lord Macaulay described as the saddest spot on earth.

There are several oratories in the different towers, as, for example, the apartments over the Traitors’ Gate, known as St. Thomas’s Tower, where the Keeper of the Jewels is lodged. A similar place for private prayer in the Wakefield Tower has been in great part obliterated. Here, according to an ancient tradition, the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III., stabbed Henry VI. at his devotions in 1471.

The yeoman waiters or warders are not Yeomen of the Guard, but members of a separate corps. There are forty yeomen, all old soldiers and ranking as sergeant majors in the army. They seemed to have been called beefeaters from the very beginning in Tudor times. The word “yeomen” is often reckoned as “gentlemen,” being next below “esquire.” They were only fifteen at first, but Charles II. improved their position and increased their numbers. Part of their duty used to be to assist the yeoman gaoler in the custody of prisoners. Persons condemned were by them handed over to the Sheriff of Middlesex at the Con Gate, where the City and Tower precincts meet.

THE JEWELS

The crown and other parts of the regalia of the state were long treasured in the Martin Tower. They were previously in a building adjoining the palace, on the south side of the White Tower. The removal took place about 1641, which may be the date at which the palace buildings were finally pulled down. There had been a “secret jewell house” in the White Tower in which the most precious or venerable objects were kept. At the time of the Great Rebellion they were taken to Westminster and were all broken up and, as far as possible, destroyed. This sacrilege, for so it must be called, took place in 1649, in the August which followed the death of Charles I. A certain number of articles were sent back to the Tower, no doubt to be melted down at the Mint. These last included “Queen Edith’s crown” of silver-gilt and “King Alfred’s crown” of gold wirework, with a few slight jewels set in it and two bells. This must have been an object of the highest antiquity, perhaps reaching back to the eleventh century. It need hardly be remarked that “Queen Edith” is a wholly mythical person in this connection, no wife of a sovereign of the house of Wessex being called “Queen” or wearing a crown. The Confessor’s wife was “the lady Edith,” his mother “the old lady.” There is no saying what England lost by the wholesale destruction of these old crowns. There is a certain satisfaction in reflecting that the Roundhead treasury was not greatly benefited, the value of the objects sold or melted amounting only to £14,221 : 15 : 4. The Crown jewels as we see them now consist mainly of those required at a coronation, but the old “Regalia” comprised “one christall pott” standing on crystal balls and mounted with silver gilt, with a mannikin on the handle, valued then at £9; two gold trencher plates at £85; more than two dozen crystal cups mounted in gold, and many set with jewels; crystal and gold dishes; a crystal watch, valued at £30; salt-cellars of all kinds of precious materials; twenty-six agate bowls and cups—agate was thought to protect the drinker against poison; mazers, some mounted in gold; an “old rusty knife, forke, and spoone,” garnished with gold—it is often asserted that Charles II. brought in the use of forks, but there were several forks in the old collection; candlesticks; an old woman of gold for a salt-cellar, and numerous objects of mother-of-pearl. In addition there were many single stones, and among them “one ruby ballass pierced, and wrapt in a paper by itselfe, valued at £4.” The Puritan framers of the catalogue did not dare evidently to call any attention to the historical and monarchical associations of this stone. It remained unsold until Oliver Cromwell coming into sole power, and perhaps foreseeing that, if he lived, these things might be useful in a coronation, stopped the sale and destruction of the Crown jewels. This ruby, though it is not of first-rate quality and is pierced, was saved and is identified by antiquaries as the jewel which Peter, King of Castile, gave to the Black Prince in 1367, as part payment, it is supposed, for his help in the battle of Najera. Peter, who received the name of “the Cruel,” is said to have fought the Moorish king of Grenada for the sake of his jewels, of which this was one, and to have murdered him in cold blood. Henry V. wore it at Agincourt, in 1415, in his helmet. Another relic of the old regalia is the sapphire in the front of the circlet. It was carried away by James II. when he left England in 1688, and was restored by Cardinal York (Henry IX.) by will, with some other jewels, to George III., in 1807. Another sapphire figures in the cross on the summit of the State crown, as it did on that of Queen Victoria. Its history points to its having been worn by Edward the Confessor in a ring. The legend connecting it with the present regalia is in the Coronation Book of Edward VII., p. 56 (Cassell and Company, 1902). A silver-gilt spoon of thirteenth-century work, possibly of twelfth, is the only other object known to have been in the old regalia.

The other objects exhibited were chiefly made for the coronation of Charles II. Silver or silver-gilt plate of that period is very scarce, and the examples before us, most of which were made by Sir Robert Vyner, are of the highest quality of which the period was capable. It is not necessary to go through the different items of which the collection consists. It will be sufficient to warn the visitor that when he reads on the label “Crown of St. Edward,” he must take it as if the words were “Crown (made by Vyner in imitation of that in the old regalia called the Crown) of St. Edward.” The State crown was worn by King Edward VII. at his coronation and is the same as that of Queen Victoria, somewhat enlarged. It is of silver and has about 3000 diamonds, 227 pearls, 5 rubies, 17 sapphires, and 11 emeralds. The Sword of State was carried by the Marquis of Londonderry, the Sceptre by the Duke of Argyll, and the Sword of Mercy by the Duke of Grafton. At the coronation of George III. the sword was forgotten and was left behind in St. James’s Palace. The Lord Mayor’s sword was borrowed in the Abbey and was borne by the Earl of Huntingdon. The right sword was, however, brought and laid on the altar before the close of the service. At the coronation of George IV. it was carried by the Duke of Dorset, and at that of William IV. by the Duke of Wellington. At the coronation of Queen Victoria the sword was borne by Lord Melbourne. Three other swords were borne at the coronation of George IV., those, namely, of temporal justice, of spiritual justice, and of mercy.