The Tower of London

by William Benham

It was convenient to carry on Eliot’s history unbroken, but it is necessary to look back to the assassination of Buckingham. The assassin, Felton, bought his knife at a stall on Tower Hill, went to Portsmouth, and there committed his crime. His motives still remain uncertain. Probably religious fanaticism was one, but private vengeance for supposed injustice as to promotion was another. Buckingham was so unpopular that when Felton was brought down the river to the Tower, blessings and prayers were cried after him by the crowd. He expressed deep penitence, and requested that he might be allowed to wear sackcloth and a halter until the day of his death, and might receive the Communion. He was hanged at Tyburn in December, and his body was hung in chains at Portsmouth.

Lords Spencer and Arundel were shut up in the Tower over a private quarrel. Arundel insulted Spencer by telling him that at no distant time back his ancestors had been tending sheep, to which the retort was, “And at that time yours were plotting treason.”

James I was the last monarch who used the Tower as a royal residence. Charles I did not even rest there on the night preceding his coronation, nor is there any record of his having visited the place during his whole reign.

One line may be given to Mervyn, Lord Audley and Earl of Castlehaven, who was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1631 for a whole series of revolting crimes which probably indicate insanity. But the cells continued to be filled by offenders against the Government, Denzil Holles, Selden, Valentine, Coryton, Sir Miles Hobart, Sir P. Heyman among them. The first-named was brother-in-law of Lord Strafford, and strove to save him, but he took a strong part against the king’s policy, though after the Civil War broke out he opposed Cromwell and the Independents, and after the Restoration he was in the confidence of the king. John Selden was a steady opponent of the king, but after his fall kept entirely clear of politics, and gave himself to his great and valuable legal labours. Lord Loudoun was one of the commissioners sent to England by the Scottish Covenanters, and was committed to the Tower on the charge of treasonable correspondence. Clarendon has a story that the king ordered that he should be executed by virtue of his royal warrant, that the Marquis of Hamilton made his way to the royal presence to remonstrate, and was met with a curt refusal to listen. “Let the warrant be obeyed,” said the king, whereupon Hamilton said, “Then I shall start posthaste for Scotland to-morrow morning, for the whole city will be in an uproar, and I will show that I had no hand in it.” Thereupon Charles gave way, and soon after Loudoun was released. But the truth of this story has been questioned. He afterwards showed a genuine desire to reconcile the king with the Presbyterians, and was present at the coronation of Charles II at Scone in 1650.

But we come now to the two most prominent prisoners of King Charles’s time. On November 11, 1640, the Earl of Strafford was at Whitehall making proposals for the impeachment of the parliamentary leaders for treason. At the same moment Pym was impeaching Strafford in the House of Commons. The earl heard of this, and hastened to the House to defend himself, but was not allowed to speak, and was carried off to the Tower. So was Archbishop Laud. In January Strafford was brought to trial in Westminster Hall, and defended himself with superb eloquence. “Never any man,” says the Puritan chronicler Whitelock, “acted his part on such a theatre with greater reason, constancy, judgment and temper, and with better grace in all his words and gestures.” But he was condemned to die. The king was eager to save him, and there was at one moment a possibility of it. Charles had made overtures for a ministry composed of the popular leaders, in which Pym was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer and Holles Secretary of State. But meanwhile he was planning to bring up the army from the North, discontented as it was by want of pay, to seize the Tower and free Strafford. He also reckoned on support from the Scotch, who were divided into opposing parties. But Pym became aware of his double dealing, a peremptory message was sent to him by the House of Commons for the death warrant, and Charles signed it. We have all heard how the earl wrote to the king beseeching him not to endanger his crown by opposing the will of the people, and how when he heard of the king’s assent he exclaimed, “Put not your trust in princes.” He was led out to Tower Hill to die on May 12, 1641. On his way he passed the Bloody Tower, in which Laud was imprisoned, and knelt to receive the blessing, which the prelate uttered with uplifted hands.

That was the turning-point in the history, the victory of Parliament over the minister whose theory of government was personal authority. And the same conflict of principles was seen in the case of the Archbishop. He was not brought to trial indeed for some years, for the House of Commons had pressing work on hand and the case was much more complicated. For there were those among the Puritans who loved the Prayer Book with all their hearts, whilst they rejected Laud’s theory of Church government. The prelate had been educated by Buckeridge, president of St. John’s College, Oxford, who had always set his face against Puritanism in the latter days of Elizabeth’s reign, and had laid much stress on sacramental grace and episcopal organization; and Laud had entirely accepted this teaching, and all his life was earnestly attached to the observance of external order. And herein he was supported by an increasing number of theologians hostile to Calvinism. In his early controversial writings he followed the teaching of Hooker, desiring to bring questions not of necessity vital, under duly authorized authority. He became president of his college in 1611, Archdeacon of Huntingdon 1615, Dean of Gloucester 1616, Bishop of St. David’s 1621. But these successive advancements were not so important in his life as the ascendency which he acquired at the accession of Charles I. He had consistently held to his opinions, and now he saw his way, as he thought, to enforce authority as the rule in religion, with uniformity as its natural consequence. In 1626 he was made Bishop of Bath and Wells, in 1628 of London, Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1629, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. It is needless to say that his determination to enforce uniformity was identified by the Presbyterians as of a piece with Strafford’s “thorough.” Of his zeal, his honesty and purity of purpose there is no question, any more than of his holiness of life. But he was blind to the necessity of paying due respect to the convictions of others, and his meaning was misjudged. Thus, when he insisted on placing the Lord’s Table at the east end of every church instead of in the middle, he was accused, quite untruly, of desiring to restore the Roman Catholic faith. He was angry at the charge, and himself incurred the anger of the queen, Henrietta Maria, for repudiating Roman doctrine.

Meanwhile the Civil War broke out (August, 1642), and in London for the time being Puritanism had the upper hand; the Bishops were excluded from Parliament, the Archbishop lay in close confinement in the Bloody Tower. His diary remains to tell us of the hardships he went through. On March 10, 1643, he was brought to trial and charged in general terms with “high treason and other misdemeanours.” The total want of particularity in the articles of accusation, however, prove the irregular nature of the proceedings. Sergeant Wild on the part of the prosecution admitted this, but said that when all the Archbishop’s evil deeds were put together they made many grand treasons. “I crave your mercy,” retorted Laud’s counsel; “I never understood before, Mr. Sergeant, that two hundred couple of black rabbits made a black horse.” The trial lasted for twenty days, with many intervals, but at length he was condemned on the charge that he had “attempted to subvert religion and the fundamental laws of the realm.” He was beheaded on Tower Hill on January 10, 1645, in the seventy-second year of his age, and was buried in the chancel of Allhallows Barking, but the body was removed to St. John’s, Oxford, in 1663.

From the time when Charles unfurled his standard at Nottingham, the Tower, though nominally held in his name, was in the keeping of Parliament, and its prisoners were the king’s supporters. Thus Sir Ralph Hopton, who had voted for Strafford’s attainder and opposed King Charles’s taxation schemes, was sent here “for ten days” by the Parliament because he protested against violent speeches by his fellow members against the king. He afterwards joined the king’s army, and was created Baron Hopton. On the overthrow he retired to Bruges, where he died. He was a sincere patriot, and received earnest assurances from the Puritan leaders of their personal respect for him. Sir John Gayer, Lord Mayor of London, was shut up for publishing the king’s proclamation against the militia; so were three aldermen and a sheriff, Sir John Glynne, Recorder of London, a first-rate lawyer and splendid orator, a supporter of the Solemn League and Covenant, but imprisoned for opposing the ascendency of the army and the intolerance of the Independents; released and re-admitted to parliament, and one of the commissioners appointed to treat with the king at Carisbrooke; but still distrusted; made a speech in favour of monarchy in 1658, made king’s sergeant to Charles II. Two great names are those of John Paulet, fifth Marquis of Winchester (“Old Loyalty”), the celebrated defender of Basing House, and Monk, the future Duke of Albemarle, taken prisoner by Fairfax at the siege of Nantwich, and released from imprisonment on condition that he would fight for them in Ireland, but not in England. Two of his fellow-prisoners who had been fighting by his side, Lord Macquire and Colonel MacMahon, were captured in trying to escape by swimming the moat, and were hanged.