28. The Tower and Old London Bridge.
From an engraving after J. Maurer, 1746.
Gardner Collection.
At the time of the tragedy at Whitehall, January 30, 164-8⁄9, many of the king’s supporters were prisoners in the Tower, and some of the most illustrious of them shared his fate—the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland, Arthur Lord Capel. A brave old Welsh knight, Sir John Owen, who was also sentenced, made a low bow to the judges, and said they had “done honour to a poor gentleman of Wales to sentence him with such noble fellow-prisoners.” Ireton was so moved with this that he made a speech to the Commons pleading that whereas the rest had advocates to speak for them, plain Sir John Owen had none, and moved that he be pardoned. It was carried, and Sir John went back to Wales and died in peace in 1666. Another Lord Mayor, Sir Abraham Reynardson, was imprisoned and fined because he would not publish the parliamentary ordinance abolishing royalty. After the Restoration he was again Lord Mayor. There is a fine portrait of him in Merchant Taylors Hall. Christopher Love is another prisoner who claims mention. He was a Puritan minister, very eloquent, and attracted large congregations. In his horror at the execution of the king he turned royalist, and was beheaded for plotting for the Restoration. After the battle of Worcester in 1651 a great number of prisoners were brought hither—the Marquis of Worcester, Earls of Crawford, Lauderdale, and Rother; they remained until the Restoration. In July, 1656, a mandate was sent by Cromwell to the Lieutenant of the Tower for the release of Lucy Barlow and her child. She was otherwise named Lucy Walters, and was one of Charles II’s concubines. The child was afterwards Duke of Monmouth. She had been imprisoned for some time. Miles Syndercombe, who had been in Cromwell’s army, and in very intimate friendship with him, took affront at some slight and tried to assassinate him in 1657. He was sentenced to death, but committed suicide, and the body was dragged at a horse’s tail from the Tower to Tyburn, and there buried with a stake driven through it. Dr. John Hewitt was minister of the Church of St. Gregory by St. Paul’s, and Cromwell’s daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, was a regular member of his congregation. It is recorded that the Protector himself frequently joined her. This did not prevent Hewitt from raising forces in Kent and Sussex for the Restoration, and he was beheaded on Tower Hill, though Mrs. Claypole earnestly interceded for him. With him died Sir Henry Slingsby. There were very many others, and even after Cromwell’s death plotters were brought in, among them Henry Mordaunt, brother of the Earl of Peterborough, Lady Mary Howard, the Earl of Chesterfield, Lords Falconbridge, Falkland, De la Ware, Bellasis, Charles Howard and Castleton. They were subsequently released. When Cromwell died, and the nation was yet in uncertainty as to the course of events, the Tower became the object of much attention. There was the army on one side and the Parliamentary party on the other, and the latter arranged with Colonel Fitz, the Lieutenant, that Colonel Okey, with three hundred men, should appear at a given hour and demand and receive admittance. But this was divulged and the army sent Colonel Desborough with a force, which seized the lieutenant, and placed a fresh garrison. This fell to quarrelling, whereupon Lenthall, the speaker, sent another force, which took possession under Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper. Then came General Monk’s grand coup, and he seized the fortress in the name of King Charles.
The Restoration, as was probably inevitable, brought fierce reprisals on those who had been severe and unrelenting. Thomas Harrison had been one of the most eager of the regicides; he had afterwards been strenuous in support of Cromwell for a while, but, as an anabaptist, had become a Fifth Monarchy man, and had been twice sent to the Tower as such. Being released in 1659, he retired to his house in Staffordshire, and in May 1660 was arrested there, was brought to trial in October, drawn on a hurdle to Charing Cross, and there executed (October 13). So were Gregory Clement, a London merchant, Colonel John Jones, Thomas Scot, who had all taken part in the king’s trial. So were Colonels Axtel and Hacker, who had commanded the guard at the trial and at the execution. Sir Harry Vane, who had taken no part in the trial, was charged with having endeavoured to prevent the Restoration, and suffered on that charge. Some escaped, probably with the connivance of the guards. Three who had so escaped, and had reached Holland—Colonels Barkstead and Okey and Miles Corbet—were treacherously brought back and put to death at Tyburn in 1662. Some of the delinquents, e.g. Lord Monson, Sir H. Mildmay, Robert Wallop, were sentenced to be drawn on sledges from the Tower to Tyburn and back with halters round their necks, and then to suffer perpetual imprisonment. In contrast there were grand doings, and certainly not without national enthusiasm, in the coronation procession from the Tower to Westminster.
In the great fire of 1666 the Tower was largely indebted for its escape to the energy of the king, who had the buildings contiguous to the moat and the entrance blown up with gunpowder. Pepys was an eyewitness of this measure, and declares that as the White Tower was the powder magazine, “it would undoubtedly not only have beaten down and destroyed all the bridge, but sunk and torn the vessels in the river, and rendered the demolition beyond expression for several miles about the country.”
There were many committals in the early years of Charles II’s reign, on charges of “seditious practices” and dangerous designs, but few of any abiding interest. Thomas, Lord Buller, of Moor Park, was sent for challenging the Duke of Buckingham, and the Marquis of Dorchester for “using ill language” about the same noble, and in 1667 the duke himself was shut up here, and not for the first nor second time. There is no need here to discuss the character of George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham. Dryden’s character of him as “Zimri” appears to be as true as it is masterly. He was an infant when his father was assassinated, and was brought up with the children of Charles I, and served them after the king’s death, fighting for the younger Charles at Worcester. But in Holland he quarrelled with the queen-mother and Clarendon, returned to England and married Fairfax’s daughter, for which he was sent to the Tower in 1658. Released at the Restoration, he was again admitted to royal favour and was an influential member of the Cabal ministry, but in 1668 seduced the Countess of Shrewsbury, killed her husband in a duel, was consequently treated with coldness by the Duke of York, and joined the Whigs; was again sent to the Tower for intriguing, but apparently his ribald conversation got him into favour again with Charles II, and he was restored to Court favour. From that time he kept out of politics and wrote verses. His clever play, the Rehearsal, holds its place in English literature.