The Tower of London

by William Benham

The next important builder after William the Conqueror was Henry III. A good deal of English fortification work is to be attributed to him. His master mason at the Tower was Adam of Lambourne, but the King himself may be called his own clerk of the works. He built the outer wall facing the ditch which had been dug in Norman days, and of course supplied with water from the Thames. It will be remembered that this King was the builder of the greater portion of Westminster Abbey; whatever his defects as a ruler, he was a man of learning and taste, and he decorated the Norman chapel in the White Tower with beautiful frescoes and stained glass, and gave bells to St. Peter’s Church on Tower Green. The Lantern Tower, on the new wall, he chose for his bedroom, and built a tiny chapel in it for his own devotions, which was so used by his successors until the tragedy of a king murdered before the altar destroyed the sanctity. Traitors’ Gate, also, was his work, the great entrance from the river side, and a very noble piece of engineering; how it got its name we shall see abundantly hereafter. A yet more important work of his, and for a while most unpopular, was the Wharf: the strip of bank alongside the river like the Thames Embankment of our own day. Adam of Lambourne was the engineer also of this remarkable work. Piles of timber were driven into the mud, and rubble thrown in between them, and then the whole mass was faced with a barrier of stone. At the beginning of the work the high tide washed it down, and carried away completely a tower which he was constructing to guard it. The citizens sent a remonstrance, not only against the expense, but against the harm which they considered it would cause to trade navigation, but the King persisted and ordered Adam to make his foundations stronger. A cry was even got up that the ghost of St. Thomas of Canterbury had appeared to denounce the work. But the King’s wisdom was so far justified by the result, that there to-day is the Wharf, and its foundations are firm as ever.

I have told in the story of Old St. Paul’s how his Queen, Eleanor of Savoy, had much to do with King Henry’s unpopularity. She was beautiful to look upon, and highly accomplished, a patron of the arts, and the bringer of musical excellence, both of voice and instrument, from her native land of Provence. But she was greedy of money, proud, arrogant and vindictive, and always bent on enriching her kindred. Her uncle, Boniface of Savoy, whom she made Archbishop of Canterbury, was detested by the clergy, especially by the monks, for his insatiable and unblushing avarice. Her husband loved the Tower as a place of residence, but when one day she started forth in her barge for Westminster she was received with curses and cries of “Drown the witch,” and had to hasten back in terror and take refuge once more within the Tower walls. Her son, Edward I, never forgave the Londoners for so insulting his mother, and not long after found an opportunity of revenging it. At the Battle of Lewes he defeated a regiment of London citizens fighting on the side of the Barons, and pursued them far out of the field, slaughtering some 2,000 of them. But his leaving his father to look after himself had much to do with his losing the battle.

The war between King Henry and the Barons came to an end with the defeat and death of Montfort at Evesham in 1264. The Barons had held the Tower until then, but the King now resumed authority over it, and increased its fortifications. He first made the famous Hugh de Burgh, Earl of Kent, Constable, but afterwards replaced him by Peter de Roches, Bishop of Winchester. Before long the peace of the country was again disturbed by Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, who having obtained possession of the city of London denounced the Papal Legate Otho for residing in the Tower; it was “a post,” he said, “not to be trusted in the hands of a foreigner, much less of an ecclesiastic.” The Legate, in defiance, went to St. Paul’s, and under pretence of preaching in favour of the Crusade, broke forth into fierce invectives against the earl, who was present. The preacher had some difficulty in making his way back to the Tower, which was besieged by de Clare; but he held it successfully until the siege was raised by the royal army.

One notable prisoner of this reign was Griffin, son of Llewelyn, Prince of Wales, who was caught and detained in the Tower as a hostage in 1244. He attempted to escape as Flambard had done, making a rope of his bedclothes. But he was very fat, it broke, and he was killed. His nephew Llewelyn was the chieftain who afterwards gave so much trouble to Edward I.

Prince Edward went away to the Holy Land, and during his absence his father, Henry III, died. The custody of the Tower was committed to the Archbishop of York till his return to England, when he completed the works in the fortress which his father had begun, and erected some additional fortifications on the western side. Stow quotes a record of his in which he commands the Treasurer and Chamberlain of the Exchequer “to deliver unto Miles of Andwarp [Antwerp] 200 marks towards the worke of the ditch, then new made about the bulwarke, now called the Lion Tower.” Then, says Bayley, “may be regarded as the last additions of any importance that were ever made to the fortress.” During Edward’s active and powerful reign the Tower was chiefly appropriated to the use of a State prison. Of the multitudes of Jews who were apprehended in 1278, on the charge of clipping and adulterating the coin of the realm, no less than 600 were confined at once in the Tower, and the conquest of Wales and the attempt to conquer Scotland both provided a succession of illustrious prisoners, who lost their liberty in an unequal struggle for their country’s freedom. It was in 1296 that Edward began his war for the conquest of Scotland. The battle of Falkirk in 1298 scattered the whole Scottish army, but the subjugation was not complete, for the English had to retire for want of provisions, but the leaders of the Scottish army, the Earls of Athol, Menteith and Ross, with their poor King Baliol and his son Edward, and other Scottish leaders, were brought to the Tower, as in 1305 was William Wallace. The latter was executed in Smithfield, August 25, 1305. His was one of the first trials in Westminster Hall.

Edward II, like his father, showed no partiality for the Tower as a residence, but occasionally retired to it as a place of safety. In 1322 his eldest daughter was born here, and was called in consequence “Joan of the Tower,” as his youngest son was called John of Eltham from his birthplace. During that miserable reign the conspiracies raised by the barons, first against Piers de Gaveston, and afterwards against the Despensers, the successive favourites of the unhappy King, caused the issuing of frequent orders for putting the Tower in a state of defence. In 1312 engines were constructed, and other precautions taken to make it impregnable, for the barons were in open rebellion. In 1324, Lord Mortimer being confined in the Tower, and more rebel barons in other fortresses, a plot was laid to set them at liberty simultaneously. This failed, but Mortimer contrived to escape by inviting the governor of the Tower, Sir Samuel Segrave, with other officers of the fortress, to a banquet and making them drunk. Though every exertion was made to recapture him he got away to France, where in conjunction with the Queen, Isabella, he brought about the unnatural conspiracy which deprived the wretched King of his throne and his life. Segrave was removed from his post and imprisoned, and the custody of the Tower was committed to Walter Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter—a terrible trust, as was soon proved. For the rebellion was already assuming the most formidable shape. In the early part of 1326 the Queen and her accomplice Mortimer landed in Suffolk. The King retired to the newly-fortified Tower, summoned the Mayor, Sheriffs and Aldermen of the city to his presence-chamber, and gave his commands for the preservation of the tranquillity of the capital. He further issued a proclamation offering a reward for Mortimer’s head. But the rebels came on, in the full confidence of victory. The King in vain endeavoured to rouse the Londoners in his defence; and so on October 2 he left the Tower in charge of Bishop Stapledon, his young son John of Eltham being there also, and hastened away to the West of England, in hopes of finding greater loyalty there. He had hardly left London when the rebel spirit of its inhabitants broke out in fury; they seized the bishop in charge, dragged him into Cheapside, and beheaded him with some other officers, and appointed officers of their own to rule in the name of John of Eltham. Stapledon was a man not only of rectitude of character, but a munificent patron of learning. Exeter College, Oxford, owes its foundation to him, and much of the beauty of Exeter Cathedral is his work. He was first buried in the Church of St. Clement Danes, but afterwards removed to his Cathedral, where a magnificent monument covers him. The “she-wolf” queen and her paramour, after the King’s murder at Berkeley Castle, ruled for a while in the name of the young King Edward III, and kept him secluded in the Tower as a mere puppet. But they misjudged their power; he broke through their control, and threw himself on the nation; Mortimer was arrested at Nottingham and brought to the Tower, whence on November 29 he was carried to “Tyburn Elms,” hanged, drawn, and quartered—treated, in fact, as he had treated the Despensers.

1. South Aisle of St. John’s Chapel.

From a drawing by J. Wykeham Archer, 1852.
British Museum.