Tower of London
The Tower of London isn’t a single tower but a complex of several buildings. Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress is the official name, however, It is more commonly known as the Tower of London, or just The Tower. It is located within THE CITY beside the Bridge Tower on the North side of River Thames.
The Tower is one of oldest buildings in London and is often identified with the White Tower, the Norman fortress built by William the Conqueror in 1078.
The complex of Tower of London has more than 18 towers besides the White tower set along the two concentric rings of defensive walls. There is a moat, too.
The White Tower is 27 meters high and the walls vary from 4.5 meters thick at the base to 3.3 meters in the upper parts. The White Tower’s architect was Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester. According to legend the mortar used in its construction was tempered by the blood of beasts. William Shakespeare in his play Richard III stated that it was built by Julius Caesar.
The Inner Ward sets The White Tower and Inmost Ward within and is defended by a massive curtain wall, built by Henry III from 1238 onwards. The wall has thirteen towers:
* Wakefield Tower – the largest of the towers in the curtain wall. According to tradition this was where the imprisoned King Henry VI was murdered as he knelt at prayer.
* Lanthorn Tower
* Salt Tower
* Broad Arrow Tower
* Constable Tower
* Martin Tower. The Crown Jewels were kept here from 1669 until 1842. This was the scene of the attempted theft of the jewels by Colonel Blood in 1671.
* Brick Tower
* Bowyer Tower
* Flint Tower
* Devereux Tower
* Beauchamp Tower
* Bell Tower – the oldest tower in the circuit, built in the 1190s as part of the fortification of Richard I and later incorporated into that of Henry III. Named after the curfew bell which has been rung from this tower for over 500 years.
* Bloody Tower (or the Garden Tower), so named after a legend that the Princes in the Tower were murdered there.
The Outer Ward was built Between 1275 and 1285 by Edward I (reigned 1272-1307). It is a curtain wall, that completely enclosing the inner wall and thus creating a concentric double defence. The wall has five towers facing the river:
* Byward Tower
* St Thomas’s Tower, built between 1275-1279 by Edward I to provide additional royal accommodation for the King.
* Cradle Tower
* Well Tower
* Develin Tower
The Tower today is principally a tourist attraction. Besides the buildings themselves, the British Crown Jewels, an armour collection from the Royal Armouries, and a remnant of the wall of the Roman fortress are on display.
The tower is manned by the Yeomen Warders (known as Beefeaters), who act as tour guides, provide security, and are a tourist attraction in their own right. Every evening, the warders participate in the Ceremony of the Keys as the Tower is secured for the night. All warders have residence within the Tower, and must also own a residence outside of the Tower, so, that upon their retirement, they may return to a home outside of the Tower.
The tower’s primary function was a fortress, a royal palace, and a prison (particularly for high status and royal prisoners, such as the Princes in the Tower and the future Queen Elizabeth I). This last use has led to the phrase “sent to the Tower” (meaning “imprisoned”). It has also served as a place of execution and torture, an armoury, a treasury, a zoo, the Royal Mint, a public records office, an observatory, and since 1303, the home of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom.
Prisoners
The first prisoner was Ranulf Flambard in 1100 who, as Bishop of Durham, was found guilty of extortion. He had been responsible for various improvements to the design of the tower after the first architect Gundulf moved back to Rochester. He escaped from the White Tower by climbing down a rope, which had been smuggled into his cell in a wine casket.
Other prisoners include:
* Gruffydd ap Llywelyn Fawr (c. 1200 – 1 March, 1244) a Welsh prince, the eldest but illegitimate son of Llywelyn the Great (“Llywelyn Fawr”). He fell to his death whilst trying to escape from a cell in the Tower.
* John Balliol King of Scotland – after being forced to abdicate the crown of Scotland by Edward I he was imprisoned in the Tower from 1296 to 1299.
* David II King of Scotland
* John II King of France
* Henry Laurens, the third President of the Continental Congress of Colonial America.
* Domhnáill Ballaugh Ó Catháin, the last chieftain of Clan Ó Catháin died in the Tower in 1626.
* Charles I de Valois, Duke of Orléans was one of the many French noblemen wounded in the Battle of Agincourt on 25 October, 1415. Captured and taken to England as a hostage, he remained in captivity for twenty-five years, at various places including Wallingford Castle. Charles is remembered as an accomplished poet owing to the more than five hundred extant poems he produced, most written while a prisoner.
* Henry VI of England was imprisoned in the Tower, where he was murdered on 21 May 1471. Each year on the anniversary of Henry VI’s death, the Provosts of Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, lay roses and lilies on the altar that stands where he died.
* Margaret of Anjou, consort of Henry VI.
* George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, brother of King Edward IV of England.
* Edward V of England and his brother Richard of Shrewsbury, also known as the Princes in the Tower, Popular legend states that their uncle, Richard Duke of Glouchester locked them in the tower for their own protection, then, later, ordered their deaths.
* Sir William de la Pole. A distant relative of King Henry VIII, he was incarcerated at the Tower for 37 years (1502-1539) for allegedly plotting against Henry VII, thus becoming the longest-held prisoner.
* Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, and his steward Sir John Thynne.
* Sir Thomas More was imprisoned on 17 April 1535. He was executed on 6 July 1535 and his body was buried at the Tower of London.
* Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, imprisoned on 2 May 1536 on charges of adultery, treason, and incest.
* The future Queen Elizabeth I, imprisoned for two months in 1554 for her alleged involvement in Wyatt’s Rebellion.
* John Gerard, S.J., an English Jesuit priest operating undercover during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, when Catholics were being persecuted. He was captured and tortured and incarcerated in the Salt Tower before making a daring escape by rope across the moat.
* Sir Walter Raleigh spent thirteen years (1603-1616) imprisoned at the Tower but was able to live in relative comfort in the Bloody Tower with his wife and two children. For some of the time he even grew tobacco on Tower Green, just outside his apartment. While imprisoned, he wrote The History of the World.
* Nicholas Woodcock spent sixteen months in the “gatehouse and tower” for piloting the first Spanish whaleship to Spitsbergen in 1612.
* Niall Garve O’Donnell, an Irish nobleman, a one-time ally of the English against his cousin, Red Hugh O’Donnell.
* Guy Fawkes, famous for his part in the Gunpowder Plot, was brought to the Tower to be interrogated by a council of the King’s Ministers. However, he was not executed at the tower. When he confessed, he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered in the Old Palace Yard at Westminster; however, he escaped his fate by jumping off the scaffold at the gallows which in turn broke his neck and killed him.
* Johan Anders Jägerhorn, a Swedish officer from Finland, Lord Edward FitzGerald’s friend, participating in the Irish independence movement. He spent two years in the Tower (1799-1801), but was released because of Russian interests.
* Lord George Gordon, instigator of the Gordon Riots in 1780, spent 6 months in the Tower while awaiting trial on the charge of high treason.
* Rudolf Hess, deputy leader of the German Nazi Party, the last State prisoner to be held in the tower, in May 1941.
* The Kray twins, were among the last prisoners to be held, for a few days in 1952, for failing to report for national service.
The Crown Jewels
The Crown Jewels have been kept at the Tower of London since 1303, after they were stolen from Westminster Abbey. It is thought that most, if not all, were recovered shortly afterwards. After the coronation of Charles II, they were locked away and shown for a viewing fee paid to a custodian. However, this arrangement ended when Colonel Thomas Blood stole the Crown Jewels after having bound and gagged the custodian. Thereafter, the Crown Jewels were kept in a part of the Tower known as Jewel House, where armed guards defended them. They were temporarily taken out of the Tower during World War II and reportedly were secretly kept in the basement vaults of the Sun Life Insurance company in Montreal, Canada, along with the gold bullion of the Bank of England.
Ghosts
The Tower of London is reputedly the most haunted building in England. The ghost of Queen Anne Boleyn, beheaded in 1536 for treason against King Henry VIII, has allegedly been seen haunting the chapel of St Peter-ad-Vincula, where she is buried, and walking around the White Tower carrying her head under her arm. Other ghosts include Henry VI, Lady Jane Grey, Margaret Pole, and the Princes in the Tower. In January 1816 a sentry on guard outside the Jewel House witnessed an inexplicable apparition of a bear advancing towards him. The sentry reportedly died of fright a few days later.
