The Tower of London

by William Benham

Henry IV, after the Battle of Shrewsbury, shut up in the Tower some of the adherents of Owen Glendower, and also a number of preaching Friars, who had circulated taunting rhymes against him to excite an insurrection, and who in due course died as traitors at Tyburn. But King Henry’s most illustrious prisoner here was James, the son and heir of Robert III, King of Scotland. That unfortunate monarch, amiable and just, but infirm in body as in will, was heavily troubled by the plottings of his brother the Duke of Albany, and also by the divisions arising out of the English troubles. The Earl of Northumberland and his son Hotspur were joined by Earl Douglas, and they were all defeated at Shrewsbury. Poor old King Robert, worried by this, and having good reason to distrust Albany, determined to send his remaining son James, a boy of eleven (his eldest son, the Duke of Rothsay, had been got rid of by foul play), for safety to France, for the expressed reason that he could receive a good education there. The vessel conveying him was intercepted off Flamborough Head by an English ship, and the boy was conveyed to London; Henry IV gave orders that he should be confined in the Tower. This was in February, 1406. His poor old father sank under this fresh trouble and died that year, and thus James became King. But King Henry still, contrary to all law, kept him prisoner, and the Duke of Albany was appointed regent.

For nineteen years the young King remained in exile. From the recent publication of English and Scottish records we learn that his expenses in the Tower were reckoned at 6s. 8d. a day for himself and 3s. 4d. for his suite. Though his capture was a flagrant breach of law, he was well treated and received an excellent education. He was moved about from time to time: part of the while he was in Nottingham Castle, then at Evesham, then at the palace of the Archbishop of Canterbury at Croydon. The poem which he wrote in his captivity, “The King’s Quhair” (Little Book), was the expression of his love for Lady Jane Beaufort, whom he met at Windsor. His marriage with her attached him to the royal family of England, and at length in 1424 he obtained his release, returned, and took possession of his throne, ruled with vigour and justice, until his earnest endeavours to assure the rights and just treatment of his people led to his assassination in 1436.

Another royal prisoner, partly contemporaneous with King James, and not less illustrious in history, was Charles, Duke of Orleans. Richard II, as we have seen, married for his second wife Isabel of Valois, daughter of King Charles VI. of France. After his death she married Charles, Duke of Orleans, whose clever, reprobate father Louis, brother of Charles VI, had been assassinated by order of the Duke of Burgundy. The two young people were therefore first cousins. When Louis had laid claim to the French throne, our Henry IV made a counterclaim, and thus there was fierce rivalry between the two men, and Louis took every opportunity of sending insulting messages to “the usurping Duke of Lancaster,” and married his son Charles to the young widowed Queen, when Hal, the madcap Prince of Wales, was eagerly wooing her. The hapless young wife died in childbirth in 1409, her husband being only nineteen years old. He bewailed his loss in some very beautiful verses. The little child lived to become Duchess of Alençon. Reasons of State induced Charles to marry again, his wife being Bona, daughter of the Count of Armagnac, who bore him no offspring. In 1415 came the memorable invasion of France and the great English victory at Agincourt. Charles, with his brothers and other members of the French royal family, had done their best in defence of their rights. Shakespeare depicts his zeal and his hatred of the invader in his flying utterances. The brave fellow fell among the wounded, and was found by the victor bleeding and speechless on the field. He made much of him, brought him to England, and sent him to the White Tower, fixing a ransom of 300,000 crowns on his head. He was now twenty-four years old, and Henry was anxious that the ransom should not be forthcoming. For he now married Isabel’s youngest sister, Catherine of Valois, and it was most important in his estimate that Charles should have no children to dispute the rights of those of his wife. It was part of the treaty into which he entered that he should succeed to the French throne, and a son of Charles of Orleans would be a most formidable rival. The result was that the latter remained a prisoner in England for five and twenty years.

And here he continued faithful to his old troubadour instincts, and was constantly occupied in writing lyrics, chiefly on his lost love and his absent wife, some in French, some in English, in which he became proficient. There is in the British Museum a manuscript volume of his poems, beautifully illuminated, with the arms of Henry VII and Prince Arthur introduced into the borders. It contains our frontispiece, the oldest picture of the Tower of London which is known to exist. In the background is London Bridge with the City behind it, in front Traitors’ Gate, though the name had not yet been given. There is the Prince seated in the now demolished banqueting hall, writing his verses. He is seen again looking out of window, evidently hoping for freedom, and again we see him below embracing the messenger who brings his ransom. Next we behold him riding away, a freed man; and in the distance he is seen finally seated in the boat, which is being pulled off to the ship which shall carry him back to France.

That deliverance did not come until 1440. Henry V had been dead eighteen years, his widow Catherine, had married Owun Tudor and his conquests in France were now nearly all lost, thanks to the Maid of Orleans and to Charles’s natural brother, John of Dunois. Every year Charles’s life had become more precious to France, as the children of Charles VI dropped one by one into the grave. The Duke of Burgundy paid the enormous ransom, and Charles returned to find his wife Bona dead, and his daughter a woman of thirty. Reasons of State caused him to marry again, his third consort being Mary of Cleves. By her he had a son, who afterwards became King Louis XII.

A large body of prisoners of a widely different character, namely the Lollards, occupied the Tower at the same period; the most remarkable of them was Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham. There is undoubtedly much mystery about his life and doings. He was a gentleman of Herefordshire, and makes his first appearance in history as a trusted servant of Henry IV, who committed to him the charge of putting down insurrection in Wales at the time of the battle of Shrewsbury. It was then that he made the acquaintance of the Prince of Wales, which ripened into close friendship. In 1409, when a second time a widower, he married Joan, Lady Cobham, who on her side was in her third widowhood. She brought him two Kentish estates, Cobham Manor and Cowling Castle, and in this latter he took up his residence, and still remained high in favour of Henry IV and his son. Wyclif died on the last day of 1384. His opinions had become largely popular, in Kent as much as anywhere. A severe law was passed against them in 1401. How Oldcastle had come to adopt these there is no evidence to show, but in 1410 a great outcry was made against him because his chaplain was preaching Lollard doctrines, and he was accused of trying to bring the Prince of Wales over to them. Convocation which met at St. Paul’s in March, 1413, just before the death of Henry IV, denounced him unsparingly, and produced manuscripts emanating from Paternoster Row of which he was alleged to be the author. It is said that Henry V was so mindful of his old friendship that he wanted to prevent action against him, though he viewed his opinions with horror, and tried in vain to wean him from them. The sequel was that he withdrew from Court and shut himself up in Cowling Castle. When at length he was arrested he was brought before Archbishop Arundel and Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, who were both anxious to save him, perhaps knowing the regard of the King for him; but he refused to recant and was handed over to the secular arm, and meanwhile was committed to the Tower. From it in some mysterious manner he escaped, and there is strong evidence that he engaged in a widespread Lollard conspiracy. The official indictment charged the conspirators with “plotting the death of the King and his brothers, with the prelates and other magnates of the realm, the transference of religious to secular employments, the spoliation and destruction of all cathedrals, churches and monasteries, and the elevation of Oldcastle to the position of regent of the kingdom.” The plot was discovered and defeated. The body of conspirators found out in time that it was so, and escaped home; Oldcastle left London and fled into Wales. He remained hid, but apparently still plotting, until he was again captured, was brought back to the Tower, and on December 14, 1417, was condemned to death, was drawn on a hurdle to St. Giles’s Fields, and there hanged and burnt to ashes. This is the man whom Shakespeare, following an older play, represents as the original of Falstaff. But though young Oldcastle was, as we have seen, a friend of Prince Hal in his youth, he was never a roué.

It would almost seem as if fuller knowledge had convinced Shakespeare of this, and that it was in this way of retractation that he put these words in the Epilogue:—“For Oldcastle died a martyr and this is not the man.”

The death of Henry V, August 31, 1422, was a heavy calamity for England. He was a wise and pious king, and his claim to the French crown, however ill-advised, was in his view just. His son was an infant of nine months old, and the mismanagement of the Government, and the victories of Jeanne d’Arc, the Maid of Orleans, make up a great chapter of English disaster. The heroine was burnt at Rouen, May 31, 1431, but it was speedily seen that her work had been successful. Henry VI was indeed crowned King of France at Paris that year, but what popularity remained to the English party was dissipated by the arrogance of the King’s rulers. He returned to England, and the cause still went down. His two royal guardians and uncles, the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, were at bitter feud. Two other nobles were now grown active and strong. The first was Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, the illegitimate son of John of Gaunt and Catherine Swynford, a man of great ability as well as of patriotism. Henry V had reposed strong confidence in him, and had willed that he should be the guardian of his son during his minority. This had been set aside, but although Bedford and Gloucester had been substituted, their absence abroad and their quarrels gave Beaufort real power, which had steadily grown. The other was Richard, Earl of Warwick. He too had been highly esteemed by Henry V, and he and Beaufort were now exerting themselves to guide the King wisely, when he on attaining his majority was foolishly interfering in matters which he did not understand. Bedford died, the English cause in France grew more and more hopeless, and through Beaufort’s influence Henry married Margaret of Anjou, niece of King Charles VII. A few years followed during which Henry gave himself to useful work, the foundations of Eton and King’s College, Cambridge, among them. Gloucester died in 1447; murder was suspected, but probably without ground. Beaufort died the same year; William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, was murdered in 1450. That nobleman was one of the most distinguished in England. His father and three brothers had died on battlefields in the French wars. He had been a Knight of the Garter for thirty years when the Cade rebellion broke out, and his enemies got up against him a charge of supporting it. He took ship at Dover to fly to Calais, but was captured in the Strait by the captain of a vessel called Nicholas of the Tower. When he heard the name he lost all hope, for he had been told by a soothsayer that if he could escape the danger of the Tower he would be safe. His head was hacked off, and his body thrown upon Dover beach.

The Tower was ever receiving new occupants, and the kingdom was becoming more and more disturbed. Cade’s rebellion broke out in June, 1450, and was a very formidable danger for a short time. The King, to propitiate the rebels, sent Lord Say to the Tower; they dragged him forth and beheaded him in Cheapside. The rebellion was put down in consequence of the worthlessness of Cade himself, but the discontent grew, being increased by the high-handed dealing of Queen Margaret, and that same year Richard, Duke of York, proclaimed himself, with the sanction of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, as the deliverer of the kingdom from anarchy. The difficulties were increased by the mental illness of the King, from which after a while he recovered, but his popularity had still further decreased. The Queen bore him a son, but this strengthened York’s ambition. He claimed the crown and civil war began. The partisans of York made an attack on the Tower, and here comes a decided novelty in its history. It is said that cannon were first used at the battle of Crecy. They were used now to batter the Tower walls, but unsuccessfully apparently. When the moat was cleared out in 1843 a great number of stone cannon balls were found, which were probably a relic of that bombardment. They are now under a glass case in the Beauchamp Tower. Similar balls are shown in our illustration.

On December 29, 1460, York was defeated by Queen Margaret and slain at the battle of Wakefield, while King Henry was keeping Christmas in London. She was fighting for her son’s rights; the King was under the care of the Earl of Warwick, who was actually supporting the claims of the Yorkists. In the following February Margaret was defeated three times, and Edward, Duke of York, was proclaimed King in London without waiting for Parliament. On Palm Sunday, 1461, the battle of Towton, the most terrible ever fought on English ground, placed the kingdom in Edward IV’s hands. The number of prisoners sent up to the Tower after the battle of Wakefield caused what had been hitherto the Hall Tower to be called “the Wakefield Tower,” a name which it has borne ever since. Queen Margaret still kept an army in the north, and Henry moved about from place to place. In 1464 he was captured and lodged in the Tower. Statements differ as to his treatment. One account says that Warwick, acting for the Yorkists, carried him through Cheapside and Cornhill with his legs bound under a horse with leathern thongs and a peasant’s hat on his head. Yorkist writers assert that he was treated “with all humanity and reverence.” He remained five years in this imprisonment; then came a revolution. Warwick joined Margaret and King Edward’s brother, the Duke of Clarence, and with such apparent vigour that Edward fled to Flanders. Henry was brought forth and marched through the London streets with great pomp to Westminster. But the chronicler Hall contemptuously remarks, with an epigram worthy of Sam Weller, “This moved the citizens of London as much as the fire painted on the wall warmed the old woman.” The citizens were flourishing under Yorkist encouragement of commerce, and were by no means disposed to Lancastrian restoration. Edward came back, and on Easter Day, April 14, 1471, Warwick was slain at the battle of Barnet, and Queen Margaret was defeated at Tewkesbury on May 4 following, and her son was slain. On May 21 King Henry was murdered in the Wakefield Tower by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, on the very day of the return of his brother King Edward to London.