ALTHOUGH Britain presents numerous examples of military works, and
her Welsh and Scottish borders are very thickly set with castles, the
circumstances of the country have not been favourable to the production
of military buildings of the first class. Our insular position has
enabled us to dispense altogether with grand frontier fortresses; and
our great nobles, although they often held their own against the Crown,
and even encroached upon its legitimate powers, drew their resources
from estates more or less scattered in position, and seldom possessed
whole provinces, or ruled over a territory sufficiently compact and
extensive to justify the construction of a great castle-palace like
those of France, for the defence of the lordship and the residence of
the baron. The keeps of Arques, Etampes, Provins, and Vez; the towers
of Coucy and Beaucaire; the walls of Avignon; and the fortresses of
Château-Gaillard, Carcassonne, Villeneuve-les-Avignon, and Pierrefonds,
the details of which are familiar to the readers of the exhaustive work
of M. Viollet-le-Duc, are due to a period when France was divided into
provinces, the rulers of which were scarcely subordinate to its Crown,
and were either actual monarchs elsewhere, or held much of the state
privilege and power of independent sovereigns.
It happens, however, that, in that particular class of fortress of
which the quadrangular Norman keep is the type, we have less to fear
comparison, seeing that castles of this description are confined, or
very nearly so, to our own country and to Normandy. Whereas, on the
continent of Europe, in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, the earlier
castles appear to have sprung directly from Roman, or debased Roman
patterns, in Normandy a simpler and more original type prevailed,
unlike what is seen in other parts of France, and which there is some
reason to regard as the invention of the Normans themselves. These
keeps, so remarkable for their simple quadrangular form and the immense
solidity of their masonry, were erected in Normandy during the eleventh
century, and are well known by such examples as Arques near Dieppe,
Falaise, and Caen. By the Normans they were introduced into England.
An unaltered Norman castle is very rare, if indeed such exists at all.
It is, however, certain that the keep had an enceinte defence
and ditch, the latter sometimes part of an earlier earthwork; and
in the base court thus formed were stabling and barracks, and other
subordinate accommodations. These buildings were at first often of
timber, and the enceinte a stout palisade, the object having
been to afford protection to the garrison as rapidly as possible.
Both at Dover and Windsor the enceinte wall, part of which is
of late Norman date, stands upon the scarp of the ditch of an earlier
earthwork, the solid chalk of which, as at Arques, is traversed by
subterranean galleries. Where, as at Cardiff and the Tower, the wall
is of great strength, and of the twelfth century, it is probable that
the palisade was retained longer than usual, and the wall now seen the
first constructed. No regular Norman wall would so soon have required
reconstruction.
Where the Norman wall was of light construction or insufficient area,
it had to be removed, and in the larger works replaced by a double
and concentric ring of defences. These additions, usually due to the
reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., show that military engineering had
made great progress, and that less dependence was placed upon passive
strength, and more upon the skilful distribution of material. Having
regard to the state of the military art at that period, and to the
cross and long bows, catapults, rams, scorpions, and movable turrets
that formed the weapons of attack, it would be difficult to improve
upon these concentric works, either in general design or in detail
of construction, or to show greater skill in flanking defences than
appears at Corfe, Caerphilly, Conway, or Beaumaris, or in other of
the castles built in the reigns of Henry and his son. This science,
so successfully grafted upon the pure Norman works, was no doubt in
some considerable measure derived from the East, where Cœur de Lion
seems to have acquired the skill displayed in the construction of
Château-Gaillard, and which, in the opinion of M. Le Duc, places him at
the head of the military engineers of his day.
When, having crossed the Thames, the Conqueror marched in person to
complete the investment of London, he found that ancient city resting
upon the left bank of its river, protected on its landward side by a
strong wall, a Roman work, with mural towers and an exterior ditch.
The enclosure, of about 370 acres, was in general figure a semicircle;
the river forming the chord. The defences, commencing on the Thames at
Blackfriars, upon the east bank of the Flete, swept in an irregular
curve northward and eastward, by Ludgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, and
the line of London Wall to where, trending eastward and southward,
they took the line of Houndsditch, and appear to have abutted upon the
Thames a little east of or below Billingsgate. Upon the west the Flete
formed a respectable natural defence, and upon the east the line took
the crest of the high ground just where it begins to subside into the
low lands long occupied by St. Katherine’s Hospital, and now, more
suitably, by the docks of that name. Towards the north the defence must
have been wholly artificial, and is reputed to have been by a ditch
which, in the later reign of King John, was deepened and made 204 feet
broad, but which must have been a sufficient defence even at the time
of the Conqueror. Ludgate, like the later Newgate, was placed in a
re-entering angle of the wall, so that the road approaching it from
the west ran for a short distance parallel to, and commanded by the
ramparts.
London, therefore,—
“A læva muris, dextris in flumine tuta,”
resembled in plan and mode of entrance those large half-round Celtic
earthworks sometimes found upon the banks of a watercourse; nor is
there known to have been attached to or within it anything of the
character of prætorium or citadel.
It is related that before the Conqueror entered London he directed a
fortress to be built which should command the city. This, of course,
was a temporary camp, and it was probably while he was at Westminster,
or in the camp at Barking, that he studied the ground and selected as
the site of his future citadel a point upon the eastern flank of the
city defences, displacing for that purpose, we are told, a part of
the Roman wall, including the two towers next to the Thames. Recent
excavations have actually laid bare part of this wall a very few yards
east of William’s tower.
William was crowned in 1066, and it was from Barking, immediately after
the ceremony, that he directed the actual commencement of the works,
which were no doubt at first a deep ditch and strong palisade; for the
keep, probably the earliest work in masonry, appears not to have been
begun till twelve or fourteen years later.
The new castle thus more than supplied the place of the removed works,
for it could not only protect, but overawe the city, and, if necessary,
cut off its trade and supplies by water.
Such was the origin of this grand old fortress, the chief and central
part of which gives mass and character to the group, and has from its
earliest times caused the whole to pass under the name of “The Tower.”
The new fortress was supported by two other considerable works within
the city, Baynard’s Castle upon the Thames’ strand, built about
the same time by Baynard, the castellan and standard-bearer of the
city, and Montfitchet’s Castle, near it, built by a knight of that
name. Later kings had “Tower Royal,” in Vintry Ward, where Stephen
lodged, and to which the mother of Richard II. fled from the Tower
in Wat Tyler’s rebellion. Edward II. also built a strong place near
Blackfriars.
The Tower, though all save the keep is later, and most of it
considerably later than the eleventh century, well supplements the
original design. The area enclosed and the strength of the walls and
gates are in keeping with the dimensions and impregnable character
of the keep; and the circumscribing ditch, though unusually broad and
deep, was by no means too secure a defence against a turbulent and
notoriously brave body of citizens.
PLAN OF THE TOWER OF LONDON IN 1866.
REFERENCES
- A.Tower Stairs and Petty Wales.
- B.Wharfinger’s Quarters.
- C.Middle Tower.
- D.Byward Tower.
- E.Byward Postern.
- F.Queen’s Stairs.
- G.Bell Tower.
- H.Police Quarters.
- I.Beauchamp Tower.
- J.Chaplain’s Quarters.
- K.Devereux Tower.
- L.Legge’s Mount.
- M.Flint, N, Bowyer, O, Brick, and P, Martin’s Tower.
- Q.Jewel House.
- R.Constable’s, and S, Salt Tower.
- T.Galleyman’s, and U, Cradle Tower.
- V.Traitor’s Gate.
- W.Wakefield, and X, Bloody Tower.
- Y.Main Guard.
- Z.Scaffold.
Between
R and
S, is Broad Arrow Tower; and between
T and
U, Well Tower.
(From Lord De Ros’s Memorials of the Tower.)
The Tower, in its present form, is a fine example of a concentric
castle, of mixed composition, but general harmony of design, and
covering, with its circumscribing ditch, about twelve acres of ground.
Nearly in the centre, but now detached and alone, stands the keep, “La
blanche Tour” of Edward III., the oldest and most stable part of the
fortress. Around it is the inner ward, in plan generally four-sided,
but with a salient on the north front, and contained within a wall
strengthened by a gatehouse and twelve mural towers.
Encircling this is the outer ward, following the same general plan,
and contained within a wall rising from, and forming the scarp of,
the ditch. Upon it are bold drum bastions, at the angles of the north
front; and the south, or Thames front, is protected by five mural
towers, of which one covers the land and one the water gate, and two
others are connected with posterns.
The ditch, which completely girdles the fortress, is divided from the
river by a narrow strip of land used as a wharf, but also ingeniously
contrived to cut off the water of the ditch from the tidal stream.
The space outside the ditch, forming the esplanade of the fortress,
is known as Tower Hill. It was once divided by the City wall, which
extended from the north to the edge of the ditch, having a postern at
the junction, which still gives name to a row of houses, and to the
east of which is Little Tower Hill. The ground covered by the Tower
rises from the river, so that parts of the inner ward are 40 feet above
the water, and the ground north of, and outside the ditch, is 8 feet
to 10 feet higher. This disadvantage was neutralised by the breadth of
the ditch, while the descent towards the south, or entrance side, was
of material advantage in repelling an attack from that side. The object
being to command the river and fill the ditch, the keep was placed as
high as was consistent with these points.
It has been remarked by Sir F. Palgrave, that William, in settling the
jurisdiction of his new fortress, respected, as far as possible, the
limits of the City of London. Only the smaller half of the enclosure
was within the line of the old wall; and, while the Tower liberties (if
St. Katherine’s be included within them) extend some distance eastward,
or into the county of Middlesex, on the west frontier, the authority of
the constable ranges but a little way beyond the counterscarp of the
ditch. The area of the liberties proper is about 26 acres, of which the
western portion stands in Tower Ward and All-Hallows Barking parish,
and the eastern portion in the county of Middlesex.
The White, or Cæsar’s Tower, is the keep of the fortress.
It stands a little to the south-east of the centre of the inner ward,
upon ground which, on the north, is 40 feet, and on the south 15
feet above the ordnance mean water-mark, so that the basement is
at the ground level on one side, and above it on the other. It is
quadrangular, 107 feet north and south by 118 feet east and west. Its
two western angles are square. That on the north-east is capped by a
round stair-turret, 22 feet diameter, about one-third engaged, and
having 3 feet more projection upon the north than upon the east face.
The south wall terminates eastward in a bold, half-round bow of 42
feet diameter, projecting on the east wall. This marks the apse of the
chapel, and is the great peculiarity of this tower.
The keep rises 90 feet from the floor to the crest of the present
battlement. It is composed of three floors, or four stages. The walls
are reinforced by the usual pilaster strips; on the east face two, on
the north three, on the west and south four each. The round turret has
four pilasters, two being at its junction with the walls, and the bow
four. They vary from 3 feet to 6 feet broad, and all are of 18 inches
projection. They lessen by two sets-off, at 50 feet and 75 feet from
the ground, and die away 8 feet below the battlement. Also upon the
flank of each front containing the two square angles is a strip 12
feet broad, two to each angle, but so placed as not quite to cover
it, so that three salient angles appear at each of the two corners.
These four pilasters rise from the plinth unbroken to 16 feet above
the battlement, forming square turrets. A third turret, also square,
is placed on the roof, where, but for the bow, would be the south-east
angle. Thus the keep is crowned by three square turrets and one round
one.
The loops of the basement are seen to open just below those, now
windows, of the second stage. The openings of the third stage, once
probably single-light windows of moderate size, but now enlarged,
appear, one between each pair of pilasters, and each below a large
plain round-headed and slightly-recessed relieving arch, springing from
a strip of wall left as a sort of pier against each pilaster. The base
of this arcade is a set-off in the wall stopped by the pilasters.
The lights of the fourth or upper stage may be of about their original
size. On the south wall, between the two western pilasters, the
windows, of 2 feet opening, are in pairs, having a plain baluster in
common, and each pair being within a shallow, round-headed recess, so
that the eight windows form a short arcade. One pair are probably the
only windows in the keep that present quite their original appearance;
for the baluster, long since removed, was found bricked up in the
adjacent wall, and is now in its proper place. It is believed to have
been from one of these windows that Bishop Flambard, here a prisoner,
let himself down. The exterior has been defaced by pointing with flint
chips and mortar, and the substitution of Portland for the old ashlar
dressings, but the windows, though enlarged into casements, represent
the old openings.
The staircase, 11 feet diameter, contained within the circular or
north-east turret, rises from the floor to the summit, and communicates
with every floor, and with the leads.
The basement is slightly below ground on the north, and at the ground
level on the south front. The walls are from 12 feet to 15 feet thick,
and the internal area about 91 feet by 73 feet. This is crossed by
a wall 10 feet thick, built with much neglect of the plumb-line. It
rises to the summit, and divides the building into a larger western and
smaller eastern portion. The latter is again subdivided into a larger
northern and smaller southern part, by another wall, also carried
through, so that every floor is divided into three chambers. The larger
chambers are all ceiled with timber; all the smaller are vaulted. The
basement was reached only from above by the great well-stair. The west
chamber is 91 feet by 35 feet; the eastern, 67 feet by 28 feet; and the
vault, the lower or sub-crypt of the chapel, known in Tower phrase as
“Little Ease,” is 15 feet by 47 feet, the east end being semicircular.
A door leads from the east into the west chamber, and from the former
into Little Ease. Bold recesses in the walls ascend to a line of loops,
giving air, but very little light.
In modern times a shaft has been sunk 10 feet in the south-west angle
of this floor, and a tunnel cut through its 24 feet of foundation
towards the river quay, and another door on the other side of the angle
has been cut at the ground level. The two larger chambers have been
vaulted in modern brick. Little Ease was, until recently, fitted up as
a powder magazine, and passages cut through its east and west ends.
These have now been carefully made good with old stone, and the vault
cleared out. The well has lately been discovered. It is a plain pipe, 6
feet diameter, lined with ashlar. It is in the floor of the keep, a few
feet from its south-western angle.
The second stage much resembles the basement. The walls are about 13
feet thick, the cross-wall 8 feet. In the latter are three openings,
6 feet wide and 15 feet high, round-headed and quite plain, between a
doorway at the north end, 4 feet 6 inches wide and 12 feet high, and
one at the south end, 4 feet wide and 9 feet high. These five openings
communicate between the eastern and western chambers. The western
room, 92 feet by 37 feet, has in its west wall five plain round-headed
recesses, once converging into loops, but now enlarged into windows.
In the south wall is a similar recess, and in the north wall are two.
Between one of these and the west angle is a small mural passage,
2 feet 10 inches wide, and bent at right angles. This is vaulted,
quadripartite, with plain hips, very rough, but good. Under its
exterior loop was the garderobe shaft.
The eastern room, 68 feet by 30 feet, has in its east wall three
recesses for loops. In its north wall is a recess, now cut into a door,
and communicating with the outside by a double flight of modern stone
steps. There is also an original door of 3 feet opening, leading by a
short mural passage, 5 feet wide, to the well-stair, which supplies
each stage. In the south wall a door leads into the crypt of the
chapel, 13 feet 6 inches broad by 39 feet long, having an apsidal east
end, and 17 feet high to the crown of its very plain vault. In the
north wall of the crypt, near the apse, a passage 2 feet broad leads
into a vaulted cell, 8 feet by 10 feet, formed in the wall, and quite
dark. In the south wall three round-headed recesses, 6 feet broad and
13 feet high, terminated in loops, as did one at the east end. This
crypt was fitted up as an armoury, but has been cleared out, and the
injured vaulting restored in good taste.
The two larger rooms on this stage are 15 feet high, and recently their
respective open ceilings were supported by eighteen and twelve large
posts in double rows. These no doubt were inserted when the rooms
were given up to stores and records. They have now been removed, and
the beams stiffened with iron, to carry the weight of small-arms here
stored up. Possibly there was originally a single line of posts, as 30
feet and 37 feet are large spans for single untrussed beams. Recently,
two plain original fireplaces have been discovered in the east wall.
Their smoke was discharged, as at Colchester, by two small apertures in
the wall.
THE KEEP.—THIRD STAGE.
Ascending by the well-stair from this stage, a Tudor door is seen cut
in the shell of the staircase, and leading into the adjacent armourers’
shops. A similar door, below this, has been cut at the ground level.
The third stage, or second floor, has also three chambers: the
western, 95 feet by 40 feet; the eastern, 64 feet by 32 feet; both
15 feet high, and until recently propped by posts. The cross chamber
is the chapel, which occupies this and the upper stage, to the roof.
The exterior walls are here 10 feet to 11 feet, and the party-wall 6
feet thick. In the latter are five openings, as below, all apparently
doorways. The rebates show that the doors of the four to the south
opened into the east chamber, and the north door the other way. In the
north wall, close to this door, are two mural garderobes, resembling
that already described, one serving the west, and one the east room.
FIREPLACE IN KEEP.
Within the north-west and south-west angles of this stage commence
well-stairs, 9 feet diameter, which rise to the roof. They do not open,
as usual, direct into the room; but, by short passages, into the jamb
of the nearest loop recess. The east chamber is entered from the main
stair in a similar way, by a passage 3 feet wide, in the north wall. In
the south wall of this room is only a small door opening into the north
aisle of the chapel. In its east wall are three loop recesses, and
from the jamb of one a garderobe opens, resembling those described. In
this wall also is the plain round-headed opening of a fireplace, with
an inclined back and vertical flue, the outlet of which has not been
followed. It resembles somewhat a fireplace in Colchester keep. This
room is called the “Banqueting Chamber.”
Besides its regular recesses for loops, 7 feet wide and 14 feet high,
of which there are five on the west side, two on the north, and one on
the south, the west room has in its south wall a round-headed opening,
which is the summit and landing of a well-stair, which commences, about
15 feet above the ground level, by an external door, and thence leads
to the third stage. From its head there is also a mural passage leading
into the west end of the south aisle of the chapel. This was, no doubt,
the private way from the palace to the chapel and state-rooms of the
keep. It was at the foot of this stair, in the wall, that were found
the bones supposed to be those of the children of Edward IV., and now
in Westminster Abbey.
The fourth, or upper stage, is the “state floor.” Its tripartite
arrangement resembles those below, and the two larger chambers have
open ceilings 21 feet high, until recently supported by posts,
as below. The outer walls range from 10 feet to 11 feet thick,
the party-wall is 6 feet, and the short cross-wall which shuts
off the triforium of the chapel is 4 feet. The western, or great
council-chamber, is 95 feet by 40 feet; the eastern, 65 feet by 32
feet. Between them are three plain openings, 7 feet wide and 14 feet
high, and, flanking these, two doorways of smaller dimensions. It may
be remarked that the square of the two western turrets is preserved
in the council chamber. The angles project about 7 feet into the room.
The north-eastern angle is hollow as usual. The exterior wall of these
two chambers is threaded by a vaulted mural gallery, 13 feet high and
3 feet to 3 feet 6 inches wide. One end of it opens into the west end
of the south aisle of the chapel triforium, and the other end into its
north aisle near the chevet. It communicates with the main stair in
the north-east turret, and with those in the two western turrets. It
pierces the jambs of each of the window recesses, of which there are in
the west room five in the west wall, two in the north, and two in the
south wall; and in the east room three in the east wall, and one in the
north. Where the gallery traverses the window recesses, the vault is
raised a step. In this gallery, in the south wall of the state-room,
are the coupled windows already described as escaped through by
Flambard. This was the royal council-chamber, at least as late as the
reign of Richard III. Here Charles of Orleans, and probably John of
France, were confined. And hence Edward, Lord Hastings, the celebrated
Chamberlain, was taken from the council-board to execution.
ST. JOHN’S CHAPEL.—SOUTH AISLE.
(From Lord de Ros’s Memorials.)
THE KEEP.—UPPER STAGE.
The vertical section of the keep, upon a line east and west, looking
south, and here given, shows on the ground floor “Little Ease,” and the
lower store-room; on the first floor, the chapel crypt, and the upper
store-room. On the second floor is the chapel nave and aisle, and the
lower armoury; on the third floor, the chapel triforium and space above
the vault, and the upper armoury or council-chamber.
The chapel, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, is a rare, if not a
singular example of such an apartment, so large and so complete, in the
original and interior arrangements of a Norman keep. It is in plan a
rectangle, 40 feet by 31 feet, terminating eastward in a semicircular
apse of its full breadth; its extreme length, therefore, with this
addition, being 55 feet 6 inches.
It is divided into a nave and aisles, the latter being continued as a
chevet round the apse.
THE KEEP.—VERTICAL SECTION, EAST AND WEST.
The nave, 14 feet 6 inches broad, and 40 feet long, has an eastern
apse, giving 7 feet 3 inches additional for the altar. It is divided
from the aisles by four columns, and a western respond or half-column,
on each side; and by four columns which contain the apse. The whole
support thirteen arches. The columns are cylinders of 2 feet 6 inches
diameter, and 6 feet 6 inches high, with plain torus bases resting upon
a square stone of two stages, giving, with the base, an additional 20
inches. The capitals vary in pattern, some being plain cushion, others
a combination of four cushions, giving a scalloped or indented outline
in the elevation; others, again, are chamfered at the angles; and
others finished with a stiff rude volute of an Ionic aspect.
The capitals of the eight eastern columns are unfinished, having a
block in the form of a Tau, or cross-potent, upon each face, evidently
intended to be carved into the usual central flower of a Corinthian
capital; and the astragal is set round with a row of stiff upright
feathers, like a plume. Each capital has a plain abacus, with varieties
of the half-round, ogee, and hollow mouldings, excepting the western
responds, of which the faces of the abaci are cut into the star-pattern
found in early Norman work. Beneath is a light cable bead. These
capitals vary from 34 inches to 40 inches square, and are 22 inches
high, so that from the floor to the top of each is 10 feet. Each
capital is a single block, and each abacus a single slab.
The thirteen arches springing from these capitals in the nave are 7
feet, and in the apse 2 feet 9 inches, diameter. The five apsidal
arches are stilted, the rest semicircular, the crowns of all being
level. The whole are perfectly plain openings in a 22-inch wall,
without chamfer or rib.
Twenty inches above these crowns is a plain chamfered stringcourse, and
upon this the arcade of the triforium, each arch being exactly above,
and of the same diameter with, that below. These arches spring from
piers 30 inches square, and 4 feet 3 inches high, without either base
or cap. As the apsidal arches are not stilted, the piers are taller, so
that the crowns still range.
The nave roof is a barrel vault, commencing imperceptibly at the crown
level of the triforial arches, and ending eastwards in a semi-dome.
The height to the crowns of the nave arches is 13 feet 6 inches, to
those of the triforium 23 feet 9 inches, and to the crown of the vault
32 feet. The vault abuts against the west wall, in which is a plain
round-headed recess, 18 inches deep, 12 feet diameter, and 13 feet 6
inches high.
The aisle is 6 feet 6 inches broad. Opposite to each nave column is
a flat pilaster, advanced three steps from the wall surface, and
having a plain chamfered abacus, or string-cap, and from each springs
a broad flat rib. The aisle is thus divided into thirteen bays, four
on each side, and five in the chevet, the sides of these latter being
convergent. Each bay is hip-vaulted, the vaults being groined, and
entirely in rubble work. The aisle is 13 feet 6 inches high. The wall
of each bay is recessed, and the recesses form an arcade. In the
southern recesses are four windows, of which two open between, and two
upon the exterior pilaster strips. Four of the five apsidal bays also
have windows, one being to the east. There are two doors: one in the
north aisle, opening into the eastern room on the third stage of the
keep, and one in the west wall of the south aisle, leading by a short
mural gallery to the well-stair in the south wall, and into the great
or western chamber of the keep.
The triforium is 7 feet 6 inches diameter. It is a mere plain gallery,
without pilasters, stringcourse, or moulding of any kind, 8 feet high
to the spring of its side barrel-vault, which gives 3 feet 9 inches
more.
In its south wall are three windows, one opening in the face of an
outer pilaster; and in the apse are five. In the north wall, and at the
west end of the south limb, are the openings of the mural gallery which
surrounds the keep at this, the council-chamber level; the chapel, as
has been stated, rising through the two upper stories to the roof. The
walls of the aisle are 4 feet thick; of the west and east ends, 5 feet.
Of the triforium, the north, south, and east walls are 4 feet, and the
west wall 5 feet 6 inches thick.
This, the earliest and simplest, as well as most complete Norman chapel
in Britain, must have witnessed the devotions of the Conqueror, and
his immediate descendants; the church, when afterwards built, having
evidently been intended rather for the garrison at large than for the
sovereign. The upper gallery, communicating with the state-rooms, was,
no doubt, as was often the case in domestic chapels, intended for the
principal persons, the household occupying the floor below. Always
architecturally plain, the walls were probably painted and hung with
tapestry, and the eastern windows contained stained glass, placed
there, with other ornaments, by the piety of Henry III.
Henry also, in 1261, on the death of his sister-in-law, Saunchia,
Countess of Cornwall, wife of his brother Richard, charged upon the
Exchequer, in favour of the adjacent Hospital of St. Katherine, fifty
shillings per annum for the support of a chaplain, here to pray for her
soul; he having already, 1240–1, provided a similar endowment for the
sustenance of a regular priest there, with vesture, and chalice, and
everything necessary for his office. The obit payment probably fell
into arrear; for, in 1290 (18 Edward I.), the Brethren and Sisters of
St. Katherine petition for the fifty shillings given by Henry III.
for the spiritual benefit of Saunchia. This chapel was dismantled
by an Order of Council, August 22, 1550, directing, in both church
and chapel, all such crosses, images, and plate of gold as remain,
to be melted down. The chapel thus desecrated was long employed as a
repository for records. Very recently these have been removed, the
walls restored to their primitive simplicity, and the whole paved with
tiles of a plain and suitable character. It is due to the interference
of the late Lord de Ros that this chapel did not become a tailor’s
warehouse.
Above the fourth stage of the keep is the flat leaded roof, affording
an area between the parapet wall, of 100 feet east and west, by
113 feet north and south. The turrets rise about 16 feet above the
platform, upon which they open by doors, the north-west, south-west,
and north-east crowning well-stairs. The fourth, or south-east turret,
is built over the chapel wall, and contains a chamber entered from the
leads. The large circular, or north-east turret, of 16 feet interior
diameter, and of two floors, was used as an observatory by Flamsteed,
before the construction of the present building at Greenwich. Its upper
floor seems to have been entered by an exterior stair, on the south
side, for the support of which the parapet, as may be seen, has an
exterior projection. These turrets have been cased, but the old Norman
masonry may still be detected.
There is a sort of “entre-sol” between the chapel-vault and the roof,
which, over the aisles, is about 7 feet high, and capable of being
turned to account. Some of the old drawings show loopholes pierced
in the south wall, and there are traces in the south-west turret of
a doorway, which seems, from its level, to have led into this vacant
space.
The place and manner of the original entrance to the keep are unknown.
One notion is that it was on the north side, at the second stage, or
first-floor level, near the east end of the wall, where there is at
present an entrance by stone steps, 12 feet above the ground. This,
however, is certainly an enlarged loop, the interior arch of the
recess remaining. A close examination of the exterior shows that the
present door has been cut through masonry not intended to cover a large
opening, for the joints are horizontal, and there is no relieving arch.
West of this in the next, or floor above, where also a modern door has
been cut, through which stores are lifted into the armouries, there are
traces of an arch of relief, intended to cover an opening of unusual
size, and this also has been regarded as the original entrance. But
this only seems to have been an enlarged loop; the recess has been
enlarged by cutting away the wall, which at the sides has been refaced.
This would have been unnecessary had the recess been intended for a
doorway. More probably the entrance was on the south side near the west
end, where, on this floor level, is a large and original opening with
parallel sides and niches in the sides. Evidently this was the main
entrance. The masonry shows where the doorway jambs and arch have been
cut away, and a window inserted.
Very near this doorway, to the east, is a small but original door
opening into the base of the small well-stair. These two doors,
being at some height above the ground, pretty certainly opened into
a forebuilding which covered the south side of the keep, having its
outer entrance at the east end. The armoury is now being removed,
and possibly below it may be found the foundations of the Norman
forebuilding.
Although much injured and obscured by injudicious repairs, parts of the
original surface may be detected. The base, quoins, and pilaster strips
were evidently of ashlar, very open jointed. The rest of the wall was
of rubble, rudely coursed, but with a great preponderance of mortar,
much resembling the earliest work at Malling Abbey and St. Leonard’s
Tower. The arches throughout are semicircular, and quite plain. The
vaulting, though sometimes groined, is never ribbed. It may also be
remarked that there is no subterranean chamber in the keep, or anywhere
throughout the fortress.
The arrangements within the keep are very peculiar, and show a
prevision against surprise, carried, if not to excess, yet to a degree
fatal to the convenience of the royal personages and great officers of
state, for whose deliberations and occasional residence the building
was designed.
The main door, supposing it to be as indicated, opened upon a very
gloomy first floor, from which a turnpike stair led downwards to the
basement, and upwards to the second floor. To this floor the way from
the stair was along a bent and narrow mural passage, and from the inner
room by two staircases to the upper story and battlements. Having
attained the upper story, the entrance to the state-rooms was again
only by mural galleries, admitting but one person abreast.
For purely military purposes all this was advantageous. Supposing a
score of resolute men to garrison the keep, they could hold the main
door and postern against an army; or supposing them, by surprise, to
have lost the lower stories, they could still defend the passage to
the second floor without fear of being outflanked; while above there
was easy access from the state-floor to the battlements, whence the
enemy could be assailed to most advantage. There remained indeed to
the besiegers the last and most terrible resource of firing the place,
and, once within the walls, this would be easy and irresistible. Not
even this immensely solid masonry would have resisted the conflagration
which a torch flung upon the wooden floors of the building would be
sure to kindle.
For the purposes of state the great height of the council-chamber, its
excessive coldness, the difficulty of access, the inconvenience of the
frequent posts probably necessary for the support of its roof, and
finally, the entire absence of privacy in a room so large and with so
many lateral openings, must have been serious drawbacks. No doubt the
rooms were bratticed off into smaller chambers, and hung with tapestry,
but even then the presence of the floors, ceilings, and partitions must
have rendered the employment of stoves and bratticed chimneys very
dangerous.
Neither is it easy to understand the intention of the arches in the
party wall. Where, as at Rochester, these openings were of large span,
the chambers admitted, on occasions of state, of being thrown into one.
Here, however, though inconveniently large for doorways, they were far
too small to make the rooms common. They could scarcely be intended to
economise material, else the wall might have been safely much reduced
in thickness, without piercing it completely through; and below they
have no rebates or recesses for doors, or wooden partitions. On the
third floor, where the doors are rebated, it is clear that they opened
opposite ways, so that one, if not both the chambers, was subdivided.
The rebates, however, may not be original.
The absence of all ornament, the very sparing use of ashlar, and the
general roughness of the work, especially of the lower floor of this
keep, lead to the conclusion that it was executed in haste, and with
an insufficient command of good material. The vaulting especially
is very coarse, and impressions remaining upon, and the occasional
fragments of oak imbedded in, the mortar, show that the centering
was composed of small rough oak slabs, not even cut to lengths, but
overlapping, and that occasionally the form of the arch was preserved
by the intervention of a rough coat of mortar. This used to be apparent
even in the vaults of the chapel, and may still be seen in the mural
galleries and staircases.
Against the east wall of the keep, a large rectangular building, now
removed, was constructed, it is said, by Edward III. The lower walls
were thick, and its south-east angle, which remains, seems to have been
rounded off, perhaps as a turret. It is evidently an addition, and had
nothing to do with any raised or covered entrance to the keep.
The inner ward is enclosed within a curtain wall, having four sides,
twelve mural towers, and a gatehouse. The base or longest side faces
the river. The east and west sides incline inwards, so that the north
face is narrower than the base. This face is broken by an obtuse angle,
having a central salient.
The level of much of this enclosure is 15 to 20 feet above that of the
outer ward. Possibly part of the clay from the ditch, excavated by
Longchamp, in the reign of Richard I., was here piled up. By reason
of this difference, the lower part of this ward wall is a revetment,
retaining the ground along the west and north, and part of the south
and east fronts. The inequality is seen at the gatehouse, the passage
through which rises one foot in ten to the middle of the ward; and,
at St. Martin’s Staircase, at the north-east corner. Where the palace
stood, from Wakefield to Salt Tower, the levels are nearly equal. This
ward is much encumbered with buildings, some of the age of Henry VIII.,
some later, while others have been lately removed. No doubt this ward
was always thus occupied, as the Tower was a depôt for all sorts of
military stores, and a residence for petty officers of the court and
garrison. In 1213, King John ordered to be salted and hung up “bacones
nostros qui sunt apud Turrim”; and, in 1224, he drew upon the Tower for
thirty dolia of wine; so that pigstyes and wine-stores formed a part
of its contents. Lead, and the more expensive building-materials, were
also kept here.
The Church of St. Peter ad Vincula, mentioned in the reign of John,
and rebuilt in the late Perpendicular period, still occupies the
north-west quarter of the ward. In the south-east quarter stood the
Royal Palace, destroyed, at various times, by James, Cromwell, or after
the Restoration. The keep in Norman castles was intended rather for
the occasional than the regular residence of the lord, whose ordinary
lodgings were more conveniently placed in the inner ward. This was
so at Rochester, in 1281, at Bamborough, Carlisle Porchester, and
elsewhere. Here the palace stood between the keep and the ward wall,
and, besides, had walls of its own; one crossing from Wakefield Tower
to the keep, where were drum-towers and a gateway known as Cold
Harbour, and another called the Wardrobe Gallery, crossing from Broad
Arrow Tower to the keep, and having upon it Wardrobe Tower, also
circular, with a circular turret. The Queen’s Gallery extended from
Salt to Lanthorn Tower, on the line of the curtain, and the great hall
was connected with Wakefield Tower. The whole space was occupied by
small courts and gardens, lodgings, and offices; and the buildings
in the reign of Henry III. seem to have encroached upon the outer
ward, where were two posterns for the service of the palace. These
buildings, after the manner of royal houses, were always under repair;
and seem to have absorbed much of the money expended on the Tower. The
main guardhouse stands on the site of Cold Harbour. The foundation
of the Queen’s Gallery and great hall have lately been laid open.
Norman masonry, part of the ward-wall, has also been discovered. In
the earlier surveys, the palace quarter is called the “Inner Ward.”
Cold Harbour was probably very lofty; for, in 1572, complaint was made
that Sir Owen Hopton, the lieutenant, allowed his prisoners to meet
and walk on the “leads of Cold Harbour”; and about that time the Earl
of Southampton stayed leaping upon the tower, his wife being on the
opposite side of the ditch.
Of the twelve mural towers of this ward one caps each of the five
angles. Two were intermediate on the south face, as two still are upon
the east, and two upon the north, one on each side of the salient.
The west, or shortest face, has one large intermediate tower. The
gatehouse, called the Bloody Tower, stands considerably west of
the centre of the south front, and opposite to Traitor’s Gate. It
is contiguous to Wakefield Tower, which flanks it on the east, and
probably determined its position and that of Traitor’s Gate.
Commencing with Wakefield, and passing westwards, the towers are,
Bloody, Bell, Beauchamp, Devereux, Flint, Bowyer, Brick, St. Martin’s
or Jewel, Constable’s, Broad-Arrow, Salt, and Lanthorn Tower, now
destroyed.
Wakefield Tower deserves very close attention, its lower story being
next to the keep in antiquity. It is also known as the Record Tower,
records having been kept there from an early period until a short time
ago. In the survey of Elizabeth it is called the Hall Tower, from its
proximity to the royal hall, destroyed during the Commonwealth.
It is in plan a cylinder of 50 feet diameter, and is about 50 feet
high. Its projection from the line of the south curtain is about 22
feet. Whether it was originally intended to cap an angle, is uncertain.
No doubt the curtains from Lanthorn Tower on the east, and Cold Harbour
on the north, abutted upon it on two faces, and were coëval with
it; but it is unknown whether the third curtain from the west, now
replaced by the gatehouse, was of the same date; and, in fact, whether
the original design included the present inner ward.
This tower has two, and had three, stages. The basement, the floor of
which is upon the ground level, contains an octagon chamber, 23 feet
from face to face, with walls 13 feet 6 inches thick. In each face is
a recess, 6 feet broad, having a semicircular head, the edge of which
has a double chamfer, with an angular recess between. The northern and
the three southern recesses are 8 feet deep, and have a flat end also
6 feet across, so that there is no splay. In the end is an opening,
round-headed, and about 4 feet across, which contracts rapidly to a
loophole. The north-east and north-west recesses are 7 feet and 6 feet
deep, and are blank, without loops. The west recess is only 2 feet 6
inches deep, and was probably closed when the Bloody Tower was built.
The eastern recess is the present entrance, but the curtain must have
abutted on this side, so that it is not improbable that the original
entrance was in the north-eastern recess. The chamber is, however, so
dark, and the recesses so obscured and encumbered by stores and brick
walls, that it is difficult to examine them minutely.
BLOODY AND WAKEFIELD TOWERS.—BASEMENT.
The chamber is 10 feet high. It has a flat timber covering, which,
if not original, is very old, and may well represent the original.
Probably it actually dates from the rebuilding of the upper story, in
the reign of Henry III. In the centre of the chamber, upon a plain
stone cheese-like base, is set up an oak post, 18 inches square, with
the angles taken off. Upon this rest two beams, 11 inches square, at
right angles, crossing the chamber east and west, and north and south.
Parallel to the former, 2 feet from it on each side, are two other
similar beams also crossing the chamber. There are, therefore, left
outside these beams, and divided by the north and south beam, four
quadrants, and these are filled up each with five beams, also 11 inches
square, which radiate fan-like towards the walls, where all seem to
have rested upon a stone ledge or wall-plate. The radiating beams are
mortised into the main beams. All this work is original. These timbers
have rotted at the wall ends, and to support them, and the load of
records above them, two octagonal frames have been placed beneath, one
close to the wall, and one half-way between the walls and the central
post, and these are supported each by eight props, so that the interior
of the chamber is disfigured by a regular forest of seventeen posts.
East of this tower the foundation of the old curtain has been laid open.
Since these lines were written, all this timber work has been swept
away, and the tower has been converted into the jewel office. On the
north-east side of the tower is a later well-stair, 6 feet 6 inches
diameter, which ascends to the first floor and the battlements.
This upper or first floor, also an octagon chamber, is of 30 feet
diameter, and has a recess in seven of its eight faces. Of these
three to the south, and that to the north-west, terminate in modern
enlargements of the old windows, as does that of the west, of which the
opening is skewed, to avoid the Bloody Tower. In the north face is a
fireplace, probably representing an original one. The north-east recess
is closed at 4 feet deep, and that to the east is occupied by two
openings; one, the present door, evidently not original; close north of
which, beneath a drop arch, is the original entrance from the palace,
5 feet 5 inches broad, and at 2 feet 6 inches deep reduced to 4 feet
broad, where it forms a lofty doorway, now closed. These recesses have
each a drop arch, supported by a plain chamfered rib.
The south-east recess was intended for an oratory, and its sides are
produced inwards by two walls, buttressed in tabernacle work at their
west ends, and connected above by a bold plain drop arch, rather light,
and flatter than the rest. This no doubt is the chapel mentioned in
1238. It is possible that the recess to the north-east was the royal
door, and that the narrow eastern opening led to the stair and to the
rampart of the curtain.
The south recess also differs from the rest, in having within it a
second rib, of 3 feet opening, as though above a doorway, and the
opening is twisted to bring it opposite to the door of St. Thomas’s
Tower, between which openings, 18 feet apart, there was evidently
either a cross-wall or a light bridge, giving a short cut from the
palace to the ramparts of the water-gate.
The intention was to vault this chamber, and in each angle is a
semi-octagon pier, with a rude base, and without a cap. The total
height of the ceiling, now flat, is 25 feet, so that the vault was to
have had a high pitch with eight cells. It is clear that this never was
executed.
This tower has now undergone complete restoration, all the interior
fittings have been cleared out, the masonry laid bare, and the two
floors vaulted, and the bridge suggested as having led to St. Thomas’s
Tower has been actually built.
PALACE ENTRANCE. WAKEFIELD TOWER. ORATORY.
A line of blocked-up arches in the outer wall shows that an uppermost
story was contemplated, and probably constructed, since in St.
Thomas’s Tower is a second or upper door, evidently intended for a
second bridge, or a passage along a cross rampart, above that already
mentioned.
The arch-rings within, and the whole of the basement story without, of
this tower, are of finely-jointed ashlar, and it appears from the decay
of some of the stones, and from other indications, that the joints were
not mere face-work, but were equally fine through the whole depth of
each outer stone, a degree of precision not common now, and rare at any
age. The upper story is of uncoursed rubble. It has been pointed and
stuck over with chips of flint, but the acute relieving arches over the
windows are seen, both of the first and second floor. The parapet is
of brick, and encrusts an older wall of stone.
The basement of Wakefield Tower is probably late Norman, perhaps of the
reign of Stephen, or Henry II., although this is no doubt early for
masonry so finely jointed. The superstructure is early in the reign of
Henry III., perhaps 1220–30, as in 1238 mention is made of the chapel
in the new tower next the hall, and towards the Thames. The records
of the realm were lodged in the New Temple as late as 20 Edward I.,
but 33 Edward I., they were in the Tower, no doubt the keep, whence
“extra magnam turrim,” to make room for King John of France, they were
removed, 1360, probably to this tower. In August of that year the clerk
of the works was to repair the roof, doors, and windows of the house
provided for the records, and this is repeated next year for the tower
in which are the Chancery rolls.
The Wakefield Tower was the subject of a restoration in 1867, when
all its modern disfigurements were removed, and the original masonry
exposed. The brick casing was stripped from the parapet, the roof taken
down, the interior fittings cleared away, and the brick and stone work
with which the loops, enlarged into windows, had been made good, was
removed.
The clearance included certain public garderobes, built against the
north face of the tower, and a private garderobe, niched into the
junction with the Bloody Tower, and thus was shown the original base of
the latter, and the remains of a bold cordon encircling it 6 feet from
the ground. Here also was exposed a loop and a curious hole, about 3
feet diameter, and 3 feet or 4 feet deep, of doubtful use. Besides the
removal of these additions, the timber work of the ground-floor was
cleared out, and the double circle of posts shown to be of modern date,
inserted to support the additional weight of the records. The timbers
of the ceiling were original. The main beams of oak, 6 feet by 6 feet,
went deep into the wall, and were evidently laid when the upper floor
was added by Henry III. They rested upon fragments of early roofing
tiles.
The central post, also of oak, was found to stand upon a plain stone
cylinder 2 feet 6 inches diameter and 3 feet 6 inches high. This again
rested upon a thick square slab of oak, which was placed upon the head
of a short pile, only partially decayed. Beneath the floor was laid 2
feet of broken tiles, and below this, gravel, so charged with moisture
that a pit sunk 5 feet stood with 2 feet of water.
Of the arched recesses the masonry was sound, save a crack in the
spandrels of that to the west. It was clear that the three southern
recesses had contained original loops. That to the west seemed to have
been walled up when the Bloody Tower was built. The northern recess
was different, as though the loop had been lifted on account of the
exterior ground having been raised.
The vaulting ribs of the first floor did not seem to have been
completed. The north-western recess had been a fireplace, which the
original herring-bone fire-back showed to have been very shallow, so
as to require a hood, which two holes in the wall indicated to have
been of timber. The south-eastern aperture was double. There was a
small window with a drop arch and hollow chamfer, and steps up to it,
and by its side a doorway pointing to the Water Tower, and no doubt
intended to open on a small bridge.
The eastern recess now shows the oratory. The original window was
narrow and drop pointed. On the wall are traces of fresco painting.
There is also a piscina and a locker, and on each side a recess as for
a sedile. That in the north wall has been cut as though for a doorway.
The original door to this floor seems to have been in the north-east
side.
There was evidently a floor above this. In the exterior wall are some
cylindrical holes about 2 feet deep and 2 inches diameter. Their use is
not clear. There were gurgoyles below the embrasures of the parapet.
It is well to rebuild the bridge to the Water Tower, but to vault the
ground-floor would be a mistake. The lower floor covering was always
timber, and of a curious pattern. It should be replaced.
The Bloody Tower is the gatehouse of the inner ward. It stands in the
south front, west of the centre, opposite to the earlier Traitor’s
Gate, and it abuts against the also earlier Wakefield Tower. The
exterior face ranges with the curtain. Its position was no doubt
determined by the Traitor’s Gate, and by the advantages offered by the
flanking defence of Wakefield Tower on the outside, and Cold Harbour
Wall on the inside.
It is rectangular or nearly so in plan, 25 feet broad and 38 feet deep,
and pierced by a vaulted passage, the axis of which has a twist to the
east. It is of three stages, and 47 feet high from the outer gate cill
to the parapet, which is modern, and of brick.
The portal, 15 feet wide, opens under a low-browed drop arch, 8 feet
high at the spring, and 14 feet at the crown; 3 feet 6 inches within
the entrance is a 6-inch portcullis groove, working through the vault
in a chase 2 feet 6 inches broad, so as to admit a heavy wooden
frame. Then follows a double chamfered gateway, reducing the passage
to 11 feet 8 inches. Next is the body of the gatehouse, 21 feet long
and vaulted, having a pair of gates at each end, and on the right
a porter’s lodge. The inner pair of gates are succeeded by another
chamfered gateway of 11 feet opening, and this by a second portcullis,
with a chase only 1 foot 4 inches broad, followed by a portal of 15 ft.
opening. The passage rises about one foot in ten, and this rise, giving
a great advantage to the defenders, is continued to a point opposite to
the White Tower, where it ends in a short flight of steps.
The vaulted space occupying the central part of the passage is about
22 feet long by 13 feet broad, and is divided into two not quite equal
bays. The vaulting ribs spring from four corner and two intermediate
corbels, representing lions’ heads, each supporting an octangular
bracket.
Each bay is divided by four main hip ribs into four cells, and along
the axis of each cell is a ridge rib, longitudinal and transverse.
These cells are subdivided each by a secondary rib, springing also
from the six corbels, and, with the ridge rib, dividing each cell into
four compartments. Thus, besides the two wall half-ribs, from each
intermediate corbel spring seven ribs, and from each angle corbel three
ribs.
There are no regular bosses, but at each point of intersection the ribs
abut upon an open circle, the centre of which is occupied by a lion’s
face, dropped in from above. There are, therefore, three main and eight
smaller circles, besides six half-circles at the junction of the ridge
and wall-ribs. The ribs and circles, though of one pattern, are of two
sizes. All have been clumsily cobbled with Roman cement.
The porter’s lodge, on the east side of the entrance, is a vaulted
chamber, 10 feet square, with a window of two lights, no doubt
replacing a loop towards the south or front. A door, now closed, on its
north side, seems to have led into a staircase to the upper floors.
About 4 feet of this lodge is excavated in the thickness of the wall of
Wakefield Tower.
The entrance-way, on passing the gatehouse, lies between a retaining
wall on the left, or west, and the main guard, which supersedes Cold
Harbour wall, on the right. A modern staircase, no doubt representing
an old one, ascends in the substance of the west wall, and opens on the
parade before the constable’s house, and here also is the entrance to
the first floor of the gatehouse.
This is by a Decorated, or early Perpendicular door, leading into a
chamber 28 feet by 18 feet, having a large double-light window in
the west wall by the door, and in the east wall a loop towards Cold
Harbour, and a passage which, through a Caernarvon-headed door, leads
into a small vaulted and ribbed garderobe on the left, and onward into
what is no doubt the well-stair from below, now closed; and which seems
to have ascended to the roof.
This, which was the portcullis chamber, has also windows at either end
over the portals, and across its south end a low four-centred arch, in
which are fastened two sheaves carrying the portcullis, which rises
through a chase in the floor, and is lifted by a rude long wooden
windlass worked by three sets of capstan bars.
The northern portcullis was lighter, and perhaps never actually
inserted. The only trace of its working arrangements is a part of a
flat-topped recess, from which it might have been suspended.
An upper floor, reached by a well-stair cut in the wall between this
and the Wakefield Tower, contains a room 25 feet long by 18 feet broad,
at the south end of which is walled off a passage 26 feet long by 4
feet broad, at the west end of which a door, now walled up, opened
upon the ramparts, showing that this curious passage made a part of
the rampart walk, which accounts for a door and loop which opens upon
it from the gatehouse upper floor. The well-stair is continued to the
leads of the tower, 10 feet above the curtain.
The doors, window, and portcullis arch in the first floor, all have a
deep bold quarter-circle hollow, replacing the angle, instead of the
usual chamfer.
This gatehouse is generally attributed to Edward III., who may have
constructed it in the later part of his reign; or it may be the work of
Richard II. The vaulting and portcullis-arch appear of later date than
the walls, but the whole is probably of the transition period between
Decorated and Perpendicular.
In the survey of Henry VIII. this is called the Garden Tower, being
close to the constable’s garden, now the parade. In the survey of 1597,
it is called by its present name; and popular prejudice, rather than
Tower tradition, has attributed that name to the murder of the sons of
Edward IV., idly said to have been perpetrated here.
BELL TOWER.—BASEMENT.
As Garden Tower, this building was a well-known Tudor prison. From
hence to Bell Tower, 150 feet, the original curtain remains, of its
full height of about 40 feet, and its base thickness about 10 feet. It
is, however, so defaced outside, and inside so encrusted with houses
of the Tudor period, that but little of its detail can be seen. It is
pretty clear that there is no range of loopholes in its substance. A
cell, recently a stable, is really a Tudor brick vault built against it.
Near to Bell Tower is an original mural chamber, probably a garderobe,
lighted by a recess and loop. This recess shows the original wall,
about 7 feet thick; and an interior addition of 3 feet more. The
original recess has an acute, and the addition a drop arch. The one may
be early English, and the other of Decorated date. Above this the full
thickness of the wall is seen in the great modern window, cut through
it, in the constable’s lodging.
Bell Tower is so called from the alarm bell once suspended from its
summit. The bell now discharges the less exciting duty of summoning the
garrison to St. Peter’s Church, and the bell turret has been replaced
by a gazebo. The tower caps the south-west angle of the ward,
and stands 40 feet within the Byward Gate, which it commands. It is in
plan an irregular octagon, about 35 feet mean diameter, and 60 feet
high, from the level of the outer ward. Five and a half of its sides
project beyond the curtains. Above, the angles are rudely rounded off,
and the upper 20 feet is cylindrical, and may be an early addition.
The two southern faces have a chamfered plinth, 6 feet high. The walls
have been stuck over with chips of flint, and the parapet is a brick
addition; but it is evident that the basement was originally of fine
jointed ashlar, almost equal to Wakefield. Five cruciform loops mark
the line of the interior basement, about 14 feet above the exterior
ground.
BELL TOWER.—FIRST FLOOR.
The lower 10 feet of this tower is solid, and above this are two
stages. The basement, now a cellar and boot-hole, is of irregular plan,
and may be called a rectangular figure with inclined ends. The walls
are from 9 feet to 13 feet thick, and contain four pointed arched
recesses with loops, and a mural chamber, also looped. The entrance
passage from the gorge is bent at right angles.
This chamber is vaulted and ribbed, its outer end terminating in a rude
pentagon, traversed by five hip-ribs, of plain rectangular section,
and meeting by a high-pitched arch, in a central boss. This boss and
the capitals whence spring three of the ribs are of early English
character. The shafts are wanting.
The upper chamber is rudely circular, and about 18 feet across. The
walls are 8 feet thick. From the well-stair, which commences at this
level, a short passage opens into a rectangular lobby, also vaulted, 4
feet by 5 feet 6 inches, from which a door leads into the chamber, and
another into a small flag-roofed mural gallery, which threads the south
wall for 22 feet, and has two loops, one raking the south curtain, the
other lighting a garderobe, which seems to have another opening direct
into the tower.
The main chamber was lighted by four loops, of which two have been
converted into windows, and two stopped up. These recesses are of
irregular breadth, with high drop arches, the crowns 10 feet 3 inches
from the ground, with traces of a broad moulding above each. The north
loop rakes the west curtain, and has cupboards right and left under
flat drop arches for archers’ tools. Another has a lateral squint
towards the south, and another, with a hole in its arch, widened by the
rubbing of the old bell-rope, has evidently been used as a doorway.
No doubt it opened upon the gatehouse, now removed, which crossed the
outer ward at this point, close north of the Byward gate. This chamber
is rudely domed in with overhanging courses of tile stone and flat
rubble, like an ancient dovecote. No doubt a proper vault was intended.
To the spring of the dome is 14 feet, to its crown 22 feet.
It was in this chamber that, in 1830, was discovered an inscription
commemorating the imprisonment here, 20th June, 1565, of Lady Mary
Douglas, Countess of Lennox, on account of the marriage of her son,
Lord Darnley, to the Queen of Scots.
The well-stair ascends from this floor to the battlements; and at its
foot a narrow door, set in a square recess, opens upon the rampart wall
of the west curtain, leading to the Beauchamp Tower. The Bell Tower has
been the subject of an interesting paper by the Rev. Thomas Hugo, read
in Suffolk Street, in 1858. It may safely be attributed to the reign of
John, or even of Richard I., that is, to the last twenty years of the
twelfth century.
The curtain, from Bell to Beauchamp Tower, 138 feet in length, 37 feet
high above the outer, and 18 feet above the inner ward, and 10 feet
thick, is very perfect, but still much encrusted by dwelling-houses.
The exterior of this wall shows eleven loops about 12 feet from the
ground, and 12 feet apart, and these are found within to represent
eleven recesses of 7 feet 4 inches opening, with drop arches of 3 feet
4 inches rise, so that the curtain was pierced by an arcade intended
for the defence of its base against the outer ward, but which would
have been fatal to the security of the heavy superstructure, had the
most ordinary battering engine been brought to bear upon it. The recess
next to Beauchamp Tower seems to have been walled up when that tower
was built. At the base of the parapet was a stringcourse, now much
mutilated. The rampart walk remains open, but a part of it lies between
the roofs of houses. The loops are of one pattern, of about four inches
opening, and cruciform. The three upper ends are square; the lower
expands into a round oillet.
THE CURTAIN.—GROUND PLAN.
This mural arcade is very singular. Such of the recesses as are
accessible are found to be lined with brick, and can scarcely, in
their present form, be earlier than the reigns of Edward IV. or
Richard III., if so early. In fact, they much resemble the work of
Henry VIII. The openings themselves are, however, original. They
evidently exist also beyond the Beauchamp to the Devereux Tower, as the
loops are visible, although the back of the wall is so shut in with
dwelling-houses and the vaults of the church, as to be inaccessible.
Nothing like them has been detected between the Bell and Bloody Tower,
or in the fragments of the original curtain on the east side, about the
Broad Arrow Tower. In the short low cross curtains connected with Salt
Tower, something like these recesses may be seen, and apparently of
early date. In rebuilding the curtain next to Broad Arrow Tower these
recesses have very judiciously been copied.
The Beauchamp, or Cobham Tower, stands towards the centre of the west
wall, into which it has been inserted, either as an addition, or more
probably in place of an earlier tower. Its plan is a semicircle of 36
feet exterior diameter, and 18 feet projection beyond the curtain. The
exterior wall is 8 feet, and the gorge wall 4 feet thick, and ranging
with the inner face of the curtain.
This tower is of three stages, not vaulted, the middle being at the
rampart level. A well-stair, 9 feet diameter, in the curtain, close
south of the tower, opens from the inner ward, and communicates with
each floor, the curtain ramparts, and the battlements of the tower. The
stair is looped toward the field, and its passage has a small window
towards the inner ward.
The middle chamber is that possessing most interest, from the number
and quality of the memorials cut upon its walls by its distinguished
prisoners. Its plan is rectangular, with a western bow of three sides
of an octagon. In the gorge wall is a large modern restored window,
and in the bow two loops and one central window, no doubt once a loop,
towards the field. One face is occupied by a fireplace, perhaps of
modern date. Though used as a prison, it was evidently constructed for
defence only, as a place d’armes upon the rampart. Hence the
rampart walk is continued right through it, and from the passage opens
a small mural chamber 6 feet by 8 feet, with a loop to the field, and
near it a small mural garderobe, 5 feet by 4 feet. The staircase on the
south, and these chambers on the north, occupy the two square turrets
which flank the Beauchamp Tower.
Beauchamp Tower is in the Decorated style, and the work of the
fourteenth century, probably of Edward III. It is evidently later than
the contiguous curtain into which it has been inserted. Its name of
Beauchamp is probably derived from Thomas Earl of Warwick, who was
imprisoned here towards the end of the fourteenth century, and it has
also been called “Cobham,” from the well-known prisoner of that name,
who was lodged here in consequence of Wyatt’s conspiracy. It is built
of uncoursed rubble, much resembling St. Thomas’s and Salt Tower,
and very different from the basements of Wakefield, Bell, and Martin
towers. The rubble is broken into vertical compartments by lines of
ashlar, or single stones, set like coign stones, though on a plain
surface.
The curtain from Beauchamp to Devereux Tower is 148 feet in length,
and about 30 feet high outside, the rampart being level, and the
ground rising. It is original, and about 10 feet thick, except where
it expands to 14 feet on joining the Beauchamp Tower. The cells in its
base are indicated by their exterior loops. Near to Devereux Tower this
curtain has been altered and renewed, and a raised platform, covering
the church vaults, and a brick chamber, annexed to the tower, have been
built against it.
Devereux Tower caps the north-west angle of the ward. In plan it is
about three-quarters of an irregular circle, 35 feet across at the
gorge, and of about 30 feet projection. It is of two stages; the lower
10 feet or 12 feet being solid. A well-stair at its junction with the
north curtain leads downwards from the church platform to the basement,
and to a vaulted garderobe, 7 feet 10 inches by 6 feet 7 inches with
two exterior loops, and one towards the inner ward. This is in the
curtain.
The basement is of an irregular figure, a sort of polygon of four very
unequal sides, with a curved outer end. It is vaulted, and its outward
portion has three, and its inward four hip-ribs, plain, chamfered, and
13 inches broad, springing from the wall without pier or corbel, and
meeting irregularly in mitred joints at the crown. The wall is about
12 feet thick, and in two of the sides and the curved end are three
round-headed recesses of 7 feet 6 inches opening, intended for loops,
but now fitted with windows. The ring-stones of these recesses appear
original, and much resemble those in Wakefield Tower.
The entrance door from the stairs has a slightly drop arch, and near
it another similar but larger door, set in a deep recess, opens into a
vault about 22 feet by 16 feet, looped outwards. This vault is a Tudor
casemate of brick, but half of it is in the old curtain, and probably
old, though lined. As the door is certainly old, this may have been
an original mural chamber, or it may have opened on the “terre-plein”
before the church vaults were built. The vaulting of the tower is
chalk, the ribs and coigns of harder material. Possibly the walls and
recesses of this tower are late Norman, of the age of the Wakefield,
and the ribs and vaulting early English, or later additions, or, which
is more probable, the whole is of one date, Richard I., or John. It
is a very curious structure. Bayley says that courses of tiles were
seen in the masonry like those found in the adjacent city wall, of
the fragments of which it may certainly have been constructed. If the
whitewash were removed, and the exposed masonry examined, we should
probably learn whether the base of the tower be a part of the ancient
enceinte of the fortress, the work of Henry II. or his son.
DEVEREUX TOWER.—BASEMENT.
The survey of 1597 shows two circular turrets at its junction with its
curtains, and calls it “Robyn the Devyll’s Tower,” or, later, “Develin
Tower.” Its present appellation is derived from Robert Earl of Essex,
confined here in 1601. The superstructure is modern.
Flint Tower was taken down in the last century, and rebuilt of brick,
and was again rebuilt in stone, a few years ago. In its present form
it is a rectangle, 40 feet square, having a slight interior and bold
exterior projection, and its outer face is rounded. The survey of 1597
shows the interior projection and the usual flanking turrets, but the
whole of the present tower appears new, and even the exterior base is
either new or has been cased. In the curtain, close west, is a modern
staircase in the wall.
The curtain from Devereux to Flint Tower, 90 feet, though capped with a
modern parapet, and casemated within, seems in substance to be old; as
does the curtain, also 90 feet, from Flint to Bowyer Tower.
Bowyer Tower caps the salient of 160 degrees which breaks the north
front of this ward. It is in plan half-round, flat-sided, of 45 feet
diameter, 28 feet projection from the exterior of the curtain, and
ranging with its interior face, here thickened by the addition of
modern casemates. It had in 1597 one circular turret at its junction
with its east curtain. The basement is original, and only altered by
the substitution of windows for loops. In plan it is rectangular, with
a bow of three faces, in each a recess for a loop, the walls being 10
feet thick. There is also a blank recess in the west wall. The entrance
door is in the south side, and close east of it is a smaller door,
communicating with a chamber in the east wall. Above the entrance door
is a trace of a large closed-up arch in the wall. The arches are all
drop pointed. The chamber is vaulted, and from its angles, without
piers or corbels, spring four plain, heavy, chamfered hip-ribs, which
meet, without boss or ornament, in the crown. They are of the pattern
of those in Devereux Tower, and no doubt of rather early Decorated
date, and probably of the reign of Edward III.
The upper floor is wholly new, as is the whole casing of the exterior.
Bowyer Tower was, from an early date, the residence and probably
workshop of the royal maker of bows. In 1223, Grillot was making
“balistas corneas”; and, for his encouragement, he had, in 1224, a robe
for his wife. Soon afterwards the Archbishop of York had orders to send
up Roger Balistarius, with all his implements, to the Tower, paying his
expenses. Bayley gives a good perspective drawing of the interior.
From Bowyer to Brick Tower, 62 feet, the curtain is lined with modern
casemates, but seems in substance original, though capped with a new
parapet, and cased at its exterior base.
Brick Tower, in 1532 Burbidge Tower, was, in 1597, shown as a
half-round, with a circular turret upon its eastern flank, in the base
of which was a mural chamber, and no doubt a staircase. It appears to
have been recently rebuilt from the foundation, and is now a horseshoe
tower, of 44 feet diameter, and 42 feet at the gorge, applied to very
ignoble purposes. Its projection from the curtain is 36 feet.
The curtain from hence to Martin’s Tower, 65 feet, seems to have been
rebuilt. It is casemated, and, close to the latter tower, is pierced
for a staircase of twenty-seven steps, which ascends from the outer to
the inner ward, and shows the point of greatest difference of level
between them.
Martin’s, or Jewel, formerly Brick, Tower, was, until recently, the
residence of the keeper of the jewels. It caps the north-east angle
of the ward, and is in plan an irregular circle 40 feet diameter. Its
base for 12 feet or 14 feet, seen in the outer ward, is solid; but,
unlike the other towers, is mere rough foundation work, evidently
intended to be covered up. Possibly Brass Mount, a bastion of the outer
ward, just in front of this tower, was a small mound or cavalier, and
extended backwards to the tower. But, however this may have been, the
outer ward, at the base of this tower, was certainly 10 feet to 12 feet
higher than it now is.
Above the foundation, the wall of the tower, some way up the basement
floor, is of fine close-jointed ashlar, like that of Bell Tower. Still
higher, the wall is rubble, with vertical lines of ashlar, as described
in Beauchamp Tower.
The interior of this tower is so disfigured with lath-and-plaster
partitions, and linings of wood, and so cut up into small domestic
apartments, that little or nothing can be made of its original details,
which probably remain but slightly altered. The basement floor, until
recently the jewel-house, and now a kitchen, is circular, or nearly
so, in plan, with three loops opening beneath pointed arch recesses.
This floor has plain chamfered ribs. The entrance was at the gorge;
and on the right, or south, is a well-stair; and on the left traces of
a mural chamber. These, no doubt, occupied the two circular turrets
shown appended to this tower in the view of 1597. The first floor is
evidently original, though still more obscured than that below. This
tower is probably of the reign of Henry III.
The jewels seem to have been moved here soon after 1641, from the south
side of the White Tower, then used as a powder-magazine, which it was
feared might be endangered by the adjacent chimneys.
The Crown jewels, regalia, and the public treasures were originally
lodged in the New Temple. King John, however, employed the Tower
as a treasury; and sent 4,000 marks thither in 1212. The Bishop of
Winchester was his treasurer there in 1215. In 1218, when De Faukenberg
was treasurer, money was kept both here and at the Temple. 37 Henry
III. (1252–3), the royal jewels and treasure were kept at both places.
But, in that year, the regalia were sent, sealed up, to the Tower; and,
from this reign, the treasury was here. Thus (14 Edward III.) certain
jewels are described as “En la Blaunche Tour deinz la tour de Londres.”
And (18 Edward III.) are mentioned: “Claves interioris cameræ juxta
aulam nigram in Turre Londˢ. ubi jocalia Regis privata reponuntur.”
And (30 Edward III.) we hear of the “Tresorie deinz la haute Toure
de Londres.” Long afterwards there were, perhaps, two strong places;
for (20 James I.) occurs: “His Majesty’s secret Jewell house in the
Tower.”—[“Kal. of the Exch.,” iii. 197, 208, 225, 424.] And such
entries are numerous.
It was in 1673, while the regalia were in Martin’s Tower, that the
attempt of the notorious Colonel Blood was made upon them.
Constable’s Tower stands 102 feet south of Martin’s Tower. It seems
to have resembled Broad Arrow Tower in pattern and dimensions; but it
has, to all appearance, been recently rebuilt from the foundations.
It is now a half-round tower of 32 feet diameter, rising a story
above the curtain, which seems also to have been rebuilt. It bore its
present name under Henry VIII., and was a prison at least as early as
1641.—[Harl. MS., 1326.]
From hence to Broad Arrow Tower, the curtain, 102 feet in length,
seems, for the most part, to be old; but it is completely locked in, on
both faces, by houses.
Broad Arrow Tower, though obscured by modern buildings, does not
seem to have been much altered. In general arrangement it resembles
Beauchamp Tower, but has only two stages, and is much smaller, being
26 feet diameter, with a projection on the curtain of 13 feet. Its
inner face is flush with the curtain. On each flank is a small square
turret. That on the north contains a steep narrow stair, not a well,
entered below by a Caernarvon doorway. That on the south contains a
small chamber, probably a garderobe. The ground floor is entered from
the gorge, and is a rude, half-round chamber with three loops under
drop-pointed arches.
The upper chamber seems to have had four outward faces, and a loop in
each; and another in the gorge wall. The mural chamber, 6 feet by 4
feet, has a lancet vault and door, and a loop commanding its curtain
southward. A passage from the rampart traverses the upper floor, making
it a place d’armes. The stair is continued to the battlements.
In 1532, this was “the tower at the east end of the wardrobe,” and as
late as the reign of Elizabeth, the wardrobe gallery abutted on this
tower, extending from it towards the keep.
The curtain from Broad Arrow to Salt Tower, 156 feet, is so completely
locked in by high buildings on each face, that its rampart walk serves
as a gutter between the two lines of roof. It is evidently original,
about 30 feet high, and 12 feet thick at the base. It does not appear
to contain any cells like those in the west curtain.
Salt Tower, in 1532 Julius Cæsar’s Tower, caps the south-east angle
of the ward. It is circular in plan, 30 feet in diameter, and 62 feet
high. It is constructed of uncoursed rubble, with vertical lines of
ashlar, resembling coigns, as in Beauchamp Tower.
SALT TOWER.—BASEMENT.
The ground floor, entered from the inner ward between the two
curtains, is an irregular pentagon with five loops beneath drop-arched
recesses. The door opens into a short passage at the north end of the
west wall under a segmental arch, against which abuts a similar but
half arch in the north wall, under which a small door with a drop-arch
leads into the ascending well-stair. The arch-rings are all of good
ashlar, but the room is not vaulted.
The well-stair, which lies between the tower and its north curtain,
at a height of about 10 feet, leads by a narrow branch to a niche
or recess in the curtain, having a drop-arch, reinforced by a plain
chamfered rib. This recess is open in the rear, and has a loop raking
the outside of the tower and the cross-wall of the outer ward.
The stair goes on to the first and second floor and leads. The first
floor, also a pentagon, has on the south face a good but plain early
Decorated stone chimney hood, with scroll moulding and plain corbels.
In the two eastern faces are loops. In the west is a large two-light
window, a modern restoration, and close to it a lancet opening, no
doubt once a door leading to the south curtain. The staircase door
enters on the north side, and close to it is a loop pointing north
along the face of the curtain. From this floor a passage leads along
the curtain towards the Broad Arrow Tower; from it opens a small
garderobe.
There is a third stage, and above it the battlements.
Salt Tower was the meeting point of four curtains. These were the east
and south walls of the inner ward, of equal height and thickness, and
two walls of smaller dimensions, of which one ran east, and traversed
the east member of the outer ward, and one ran south to Well Tower, and
traversed the south member. Each of these had a gateway, opening into
the space between them, and leading to the Iron Gate postern. Of the
five loops on the ground-floor of Salt Tower, two opened north-eastward
upon the outer ward, two south-westward upon that ward towards Cradle
Tower, and one south-eastwards towards Galleyman Tower and the postern.
Salt Tower has undergone recent and complete restoration. Its original
features, however, seem to have been preserved.
A section of the curtain between Salt and Lanthorn Tower seen against
the wall of the former show it to have been 10 feet thick and about 20
feet high, but the rest of it was probably removed before 1532 to make
way for the Queen’s Gallery. This curtain terminated in the Lanthorn
Tower.
SALT TOWER.—FIRST FLOOR.
The Lanthorn Tower has been long since pulled down, but its foundation
has lately been discovered. It formed a part of the palace, and
contained the king’s bedchamber and private closet. It was circular,
and probably originally of the age, size, and fashion of Wakefield
Tower. As in 1532 it was called the New Tower, it may have been rebuilt
in that or the preceding century. It was injured by fire in 1788 and
pulled down, with a contiguous gateway which traversed the outer ward
at this point.
Lanthorn Tower is stated in the survey of 1532 to have been 106 feet
distant from Wakefield Tower. The actual distance occupied by Lanthorn
Tower and its curtains, that is from Salt to Wakefield Tower, was 343
feet.
The Outer Ward is a strip of from 20 feet to 110 feet in
breadth, which completely surrounds the inner ward, and is itself
contained within the ditch, of which its wall forms the scarp. This
wall, though generally, is not strictly, parallel to the inner curtain.
Like it, its east and west faces are straight, and the north face has
a salient angle near its centre. The river front is also bent, though
slightly.
On the south side this ward varies in breadth from 20 feet to 80 feet;
on the east from 60 feet to 90 feet; on the west from 60 feet to 70
feet; and on the north, the salient of which is rather bolder than that
behind it, and a little nearer to the east end, the breadth ranges from
90 feet to 110 feet. The lengths of the faces upon the ditch in the
same order are, 750 feet, 580 feet, 460 feet, and 620 feet, being a
girth of 800 yards.
The wall has been so altered and strengthened by modern casemates,
and so encrusted by buildings, that it is difficult to arrive at its
original dimensions. The height varies from 15 feet to 20 feet inside,
and is about 12 feet more to the bottom of the present ditch. The usual
thickness is about 6 feet. On the river front the wall was only 10 feet
high, and apparently only of moderate thickness.
The north-east and north-west angles are capped by drum bastions, parts
of circles of about 80 feet diameter. They are called Brass Mount and
Legge’s Mount, probably from cavaliers once upon them. Legge’s Mount
has the lesser projection, and seems to be solid. The lower part of
its exterior wall looks as old as the adjacent curtains, but the upper
part is new, and contains a casemate pierced for six guns. Brass Mount,
that towards Little Tower Hill, is pierced by a well-stair from above
and a cross gallery below. This leads from a door in the gorge to the
middle of a circular gallery, vaulted in brick, which envelopes the
bastion and has numerous loops for musketry, and others altered to suit
small cannon. This gallery is probably an addition of the Tudor period,
excavated within the old retaining walls. The salient between these two
mounts has recently been capped by the north bastion, an additional
and perfectly new work, being two-thirds of a circle of about 60
feet diameter, with flattened sides, and containing three tiers of
casemates, each pierced for five guns.
The only regular towers of the outer ward are upon the south front,
where the ditch is narrow and the palace buildings were most exposed.
These are five, Develin, Well, Cradle, St. Thomas’s, and Byward Tower.
Develin Tower, in 4 Richard II. “Galighmaies Tower,” when no cart or
dray was to come before it into St. Katherine’s unless the brethren
paid a fine to the constable, was, in 1549, Galleyman, and in 1641,
Iron Gate Tower. Until recently it was a powder-magazine, and not to be
entered with a light. These conditions are not favourable to the study
of its interior. It is a long rectangular tower, 18 feet by 32 feet,
and built wholly in the ditch, one end being applied to the face of
the curtain, so that it projects like a buttress from the south end of
the east curtain, while its south side is a prolongation of the river
front. The exterior has been partially cased, but it is evidently old,
and in substance as originally built. Its basement is solid, but about
10 feet above the ditch is a line of loops on the north and south, or
two longer faces. There has been an upper story, the walls of which
remain, but seem later than the lower. At this level, in the east face,
is the outline of a door, which, if a postern, opened 20 feet above the
ditch. The view of 1597 shows a double wall, probably an embattled dam
serving as a bridge, extending from this tower across the ditch, and
crowned on the counterscarp by a small work, called the “Iron Gate.” If
this drawing be correct, the roadway was through the basement chamber,
and the upper floor led to the rampart of the wall. This gate led into
the precinct of St. Katherine’s. The tower is probably the work of
Henry III., and connected with an original dam for keeping up the water
of the ditch. Forty feet west of Develin is Well Tower.
WELL TOWER.
Well Tower, also rectangular, forms a part of the curtain, and has a
projection into the ditch 10 feet by 16 feet wide. Its basement, below
the present level of the inner ward, and scarcely above the water level
of the ditch, contains a chamber, 14 feet by 10 feet, vaulted at a high
pitch in two unequal bays, the north the larger, parted by a transverse
rib. Each bay is vaulted in four cells, with four hip-ribs meeting in
a plain mitred joint. There is a half or wall-rib in the gable of each
cell. The ribs are 7½ inches broad by 6¾ inches deep, with a plain
chamfer, and spring from four corner and two intermediate circular bell
corbels, the tops of which are 3 feet 4 inches from the floor. The
height of the chamber is 11 feet 6 inches. There are four loops, one
pointing northwards into the ward, and the rest opening towards the
ditch. All are under drop arches. In the west side is a door of 3 feet,
opening in a drop-arched recess, which may have led into a mural cell
in the curtain, or have been an entrance from the ward. On the east
side a rectangular appendage, entered by a square-headed door, contains
a well-stair of 6 feet 3 inches diameter, looped upon the inner face
of the curtain and the ditch. This stair leads to an upper room on the
rampart level, not vaulted, 15 feet by 10 feet, looped to the field and
upon the face of the west curtain. In its north wall an original door,
2 feet 3 inches wide, opens on the rampart. The second floor is modern.
Well Tower is a good example of the early English style.
Well Tower stands due south of Salt Tower, and a short curtain, with a
gateway, connected them. Part of it remains, 12 feet high and 6 feet
thick, pierced with loops at the ground level, and embattled against an
attack on the east. This rampart was reached from Well Tower, and did
not communicate with Salt Tower. A similar cross curtain connected Salt
Tower with the outer ward wall westward. This also was looped, had a
central gate, and was embattled for defence from a south attack. These
two curtains thus enclosed the approach to the Iron Gate postern, and
prevented either part of the outer ward from being entered by surprise.
These arrangements are evidently as early as the time of Henry III.,
and are shown in the view of 1597.
CRADLE TOWER.—BASEMENT.
Cradle Tower comes next west, at 118 feet distant. It stands on the
outer wall, and projects 9 feet into the ditch, with a breadth of 16
feet. It is a gatehouse, and though of small dimension very complete in
its design, and of excellent construction. It stood nearly in front of
the bye-gate of the royal quarter, and allowed a direct passage thence
to the quay.
CRADLE TOWER,
WINDOW.
It is in plan T-shaped, the portal running through the main limb,
which projects into the ditch, and the lateral wings, each containing
a lodge, forming a gorge or main front of 26 feet width, and flanked
by two diagonal buttresses, which cap the angles and project into
the ward. Between these is the doorway, and on each side of it a
small lancet window, cinquefoil-headed. One of these windows is quite
unaltered.
The doorway is 7 feet 2 inches broad, with a drop arch and light
chamfer moulding. Two feet in is a portcullis groove, succeeded by a
doorway of 5 feet opening, of which the valves move inwards. The wall
is 4 feet 7 inches thick. The passage is a chamber of two squares, 7
feet broad, and 12 feet 6 inches high. It is vaulted in two equal bays,
parted by a transverse rib. Each bay has four hip-ribs, and a straight
rib takes the crown line of each vaulting cell, so that eight ribs
meet in the centre of each bay, the point of junction being a hollow
circle. There is besides a wall-rib in each gable. The rib parting
the two bays, and the longitudinal rib, have a plain mitred junction.
The rib and circle-mouldings are the same. They are light and bold,
5 inches broad and 7 inches deep. The base of the rib has a hollow
chamfer, and its apex is an ogee. The ribs spring from four corner and
two intermediate corbels, the tops of which are 7 feet from the ground.
These are octagonal and embattled. The bracket below is much defaced.
The doorway in the south end, of 4 feet 6 inches opening, had gates
opening inwards, and outside them is a second portcullis groove.
The lodges open from the central passage close to the ward entrance,
by doors, 2 feet 10 inches wide, one of which has the remains of the
cusps of a cinquefoil in the head. They are 12 feet broad by 8 feet
9 inches long and 12 feet high, having the small windows already
noticed towards the ward. They are hip-vaulted in chalk, with four
cells, having four ribs 7 inches broad by 7 inches deep, springing from
corbels, now knocked off, but the tops of which were 7 feet above the
floor. There are no wall ribs. The portal arches of the main passage
are drop in recesses, of which one is so low as to be nearly, and the
other is quite, segmental. The vault-arches are equilateral, or nearly
so.
On each side of the part of this tower that projects into the ditch,
on the outside, is a recess, on the west face 4 feet 6 inches, and on
the east face 3 feet broad, and 1 foot 4 inches deep. Possibly these
were the shoots of garderobes from the upper floor and battlements, now
removed. On each side, at the old water level, is a half-arch admitting
the water of the ditch below the drawbridge or cradle.
TRAITORS’ GATE.
ST. THOMAS’S TOWER.—BASEMENT.
In the curtain, close west of this tower, is a well-stair, leading from
the west lodge to the roof.
The superstructure of Cradle Tower is said to have formed a part of the
palace quarter, and the view of 1597 shows it as a water-gate, with
a square turret on its west flank, where was the supposed staircase.
It shows also, west of this, a considerable tower extending across
the ward, here very narrow, to the Lanthorn Tower, and which no doubt
contained the Lanthorn Gate.
The details of Cradle Tower are rather Decorated than early English;
and if, as is historically probable, it be the work of Henry III., it
must be late in his reign, and was perhaps completed by his son. Owing
to the cumbrous character of the sluices and gates of St. Thomas’s
Tower, state prisoners were sometimes admitted by this gate, then
fitted with a cradle or drawbridge.
St. Thomas’s Tower, better known from its ancient function as Traitors’
Gate, is the water-gate of the Tower, and also contained and commanded
the communication between the Thames and the main ditch. It is, in
fact, a barbican, and a very singular one, placed astride upon the
ditch, here 40 feet broad, and perforated by a passage leading from the
river. It stands considerably west of the south front, being in advance
of the Bloody Tower 30 feet, the breadth, at this point, of the outer
ward.
The quay, in front of this tower, is traversed by a channel, 28 feet
broad and 13 feet 6 inches deep, partly arched over and newly lined
with granite, which opens from the Thames, through an archway 21 feet
broad, into a rectangular basin or pool, 66 feet by 40 feet, and 18
feet deep, lined and paved with stone, and containing, when the gates
are opened, about 8 feet of water at high water. A flight of steps
from the water, on the inner or north side of this basin, landed the
prisoner within 30 feet of the gateway of the inner ward.
The tower proper is placed above the outer 18 feet of this basin, but
its side walls are prolonged backwards, so that both the front and
sides of the basin are protected. The south wall, 9 feet thick, is
pierced below by a low-browed water portal, already mentioned, beneath
a drop arch, ribbed and chamfered. Between the ribs is a groove, 6
inches broad, for an iron sluice or portcullis, worked in the building
above; and in the jambs are two holes, 6 inches diameter, lined with
iron, for the passage of a chain. Within this, on the inner face of the
portal, were folding gates opening inwards.
ST. THOMAS’S TOWER.
DETAIL OF RING STONES.
Seventeen feet within this outer wall the basin is crossed by an arch,
supporting a light wall of brick and timber, which was the rear wall
of the tower. This arch is a very remarkable piece of construction. It
springs from two half-octagonal piers, and is segmental, of 61 feet
span and 15½ feet rise. The voussoirs form two ribs, and the inner
one is composed of seventy-five stones, united by a simple joggle or
rebate. The rectangular tower, which thus rises from the walls of the
outer half of the basin, is 86 feet east and west by 18 feet north and
south, and capped at its two Thames-ward angles by light cylindrical
turrets, three-quarters engaged, and rising above the parapet of the
tower. The side walls, prolonged backwards an additional 30 feet,
terminate in two square turrets, which occupy the northern angles, and
also rise above the battlements.
Two doors on the north faces of these turrets, on the ground level,
open into a mural gallery in each wall, looped on one face towards the
ditch and on the other towards the basin. These galleries communicate
with the southern turrets, and are continued within the south wall,
having each two loops towards the Thames and two towards the basin.
They do not meet, being stopped by the jambs of the sluice-gate. They
were also used to receive the slack of the chain when drawn up.
The floor of the tower, which is above the level of these galleries,
contained the machinery for lifting the sluice, which must have been
heavy. The walls of this floor are also pierced with loops, and contain
two garderobes. In the river-front are two early Decorated windows,
of two lights each. The two upper chambers in the south turrets open
into this floor, which is reached by a winding stair in the north-east
turret, and by an exterior stone stair in the north-west turret.
ST. THOMAS’S TOWER.—PISCINA.
The four chambers in the two cylindrical turrets are of excellent
design and delicate workmanship, as may be seen from the plate in the
“Vetusta Monumenta.” They are in plan octagons, having slender columns,
with high bases and bell caps, all cylindrical, and slightly engaged,
in each angle, from each of which springs a light chamfered rib,
meeting in a plain joint at the centre. There are thus eight cells,
each with a lancet gable, supported by two half-ribs. Three of the
faces have windows or loops, and another is occupied by the door. In
the lower rooms the loops have chamfered recesses beneath drop arches.
In the upper, the loops are larger, but still square-headed, and their
recesses have an arch-rib with a hollow chamfer. The south-east upper
chamber was an oratory. The window-sills on each side the east windows
are Purbeck slabs, hollowed into bowls,—on the south for a piscina, on
the north for holy water. Both slabs projected, and have been broken
off when the walls were wainscoted.
There is a second floor, reached by a well-stair in the square turrets,
which ascend further to the roof, but it contains nothing of interest.
The well-stair in the north-east turret leads to a door that opens on
the north face, 20 feet from the ground, and which opened outwards,
and was barred on the outside. The meaning of this is only explicable
on the supposition that a bridge, or perhaps an embattled cross-wall,
connected this door with the corresponding opening in Wakefield Tower,
18 feet distant. By this means a person leaving St. Thomas’s Tower,
and barring the door behind him, would reach Wakefield Tower, and
therefore the palace, and cut off pursuit. In the second floor of St.
Thomas’s Tower is another door, above and similar to the first, which
in like manner communicated with the top floor of Wakefield Tower; so
that either there were two drawbridges, or a wall pierced by a mural
gallery at 20 feet high, and with a rampart walk at its summit.
St. Thomas’s Tower was, until lately, occupied by a water-engine,
to the great injury of its walls. The upper rooms were cut up into
lodgings by means of wainscot and lath and plaster. All has lately been
cleared out, and the tower restored in good taste.
St. Thomas’s Tower is attributed, and no doubt justly, to Henry III.;
but, although the octagon chambers have an early English aspect, the
grand arch, the staircase doors, and the windows towards the river
are decidedly Decorated, though probably early in that style. If,
therefore, this tower be of one date, it must be very late in the reign
of Henry, but more probably it was completed and the grand arch turned
in that of his son. The material is a rag-stone laid in uncoursed
rubble masonry, like Beauchamp and Salt Towers, with ashlar dressings.
The pool below was extensively repaired by Henry VIII. There is some
reason to suppose that this was the tower that fell twice while being
built.
The curtain along this front is original, though capped and patched in
modern times. It seems to have been about 20 feet high above the water,
and from 12 feet to 14 feet on the inner side. In parts it was 12 feet
thick; but the addition of brick casements in Tudor times, to enable
the ramparts to carry cannon, prevents an accurate examination. It is
no doubt the work of Henry III. From St. Thomas’s to Byward Tower is
160 feet.
Byward Tower is the great gatehouse of the outer ward, and is placed
upon the scarp of the west ditch, at its junction with the south ditch.
It is in plan rectangular, 50 feet broad by 24 feet deep, and its two
outward angles are capped by drum towers, 23 feet diameter, one quarter
engaged, which rise out of the moat. Between them is a curtain of 14
feet, pierced by the main entrance. The towers, below the roadway, are
solid; above it they are of three stages, and 49 feet high to the crest
of the parapet, which, with most of the casing, is modern.
The portal opens from the bridge by a low drop arch, 12 feet broad and
12 feet high, reduced by two deep chamfers to 10 feet opening, followed
by a broad jamb, in which are loop openings from the lodges. This is
succeeded by a 6-inch portcullis groove, with a chase of 16 inches
in the vault, to allow of the passage of a heavy wooden grate. Then
follows a heavy rib, pierced with three round holes, which slightly
converge, and are probably for the beams of a stockade, supposing the
gates to be forced; and behind is a rebate with hinges for the valves
of a door, opening inwards. The middle portion of the portal, which
begins here, has a flat timber roof, 18 feet high. In it is a second
portcullis groove, and the doors of the warders’ lodges. Finally is
the inner archway, without jambs, but with a bold triple rib forming
the arch.
The south lodge door enters a lobby, 8 feet by 4 feet, vaulted in
chalk, with a southern loop raking the postern. A pointed door on the
left or east face opens into a garderobe, with a loop to the east, now
closed. Opposite, a short passage, also vaulted, and with a cross rib,
leads into the south or warders’ lodge.
This is an octagon, 15 feet 9 inches from face to face. In each angle
is a slender octagonal pier, engaged on a face and two half-faces, with
a sort of bell-cap and stilted base, both octagonal. From each pier
spring a main rib and two half-ribs. The former meet in the centre in a
plain joint; the latter form lancet arches at the gable of each cell.
All are narrow and plainly chamfered. Of the eight vaulting cells the
ridge lines are horizontal, and have no ribs. The ribs and piers are of
freestone, the vaults of chalk. From the floor to the pier caps is 6
feet 11 inches. The total height is 17 feet.
BYWARD TOWER AND POSTERN.
In each of the faces is a recess. That on the north-east is the
entrance. The south-east is occupied by a fireplace, no doubt
representing an original one; The other six are looped.
The north lodge is entered through a lobby, 7 feet 9 inches square,
and 15 feet high, vaulted in four cells, with four slender chamfered
hip-ribs, springing from octangular corbels, one at each angle. There
is no boss. Each cell has a profile half-rib in its gable.
In the east side is a long two-light window beneath a segmental
recess, which seems original. This window, and the proportions and
general elegance of this chamber, point to its possible use as an
oratory. Those who entered the Tower might well need to be met by
spiritual support on the threshold.
In its north wall is a small lancet doorway, leading to a well-stair,
but probably always closed. A west door leads through a short passage
into the lodge, now a police barrack. This lodge resembles closely
that on the south side, save that the east recess is closed up, and
the fireplace, the brackets of which are original, occupies the
north-east face. The upper part of this chamber, towards the ditch,
has been pierced, probably for musketry, so as to command the approach
from Tower Street. In the north-east angle of this gatehouse is a
well-stair, entered by a separate door from the east and outer side.
BYWARD TOWER.—FIRST FLOOR.
The first floor contains two large octagonal chambers in the towers.
The staircase opens into one of these in the north-east angle, and a
chamber 8 feet square occupies the south-east angle. The rear wall
between these two turrets is wanting, so that this gatehouse, with its
portcullis chamber, was intended to be open in the rear, or was closed,
as now, by a lath-and-plaster brattice. There was a small window to the
west, over the entrance-gate, looking on the bridge.
The arrangements of the second floor are still more simple. The
staircase remains, and the two octagon chambers, but the small
south-east chamber is wanting. The rear is open.
At the battlement level the staircase and its turret cease. There is
now nothing above the parapet.
In the rear of and attached to the south-east part of this gatehouse
is a low tower, of later date, intended to cover a postern bridge,
traversing the south ditch, and dropping on the quay. The tower is
rectangular in plan, 14 feet broad and 29 feet long, besides an acute
salient of 12 feet more, which projects into the south ditch, and
prevents it from being raked.
It is pierced north and south by a portal 6 feet 9 inches broad, which
commences by a square cell, vaulted, with a cross and longitudinal rib,
chamfered, and pierced at the intersection by an octagonal cavity. Two
door jambs then reduce the opening by a foot, and between them, in the
vault, is a hole 9 inches diameter, apparently intended for a chain
which passed out over the rib of the further door, and worked, still
within the tower, a light bridge, the recess for which is seen outside
the door. The chamber here widens by 3 feet, to allow space for those
defending the east wall. When this bridge was down, a way was opened to
a door in the west wall, outside which is a platform, whence a second
bridge dropped southwards across the ditch. The upper story of this
postern tower was one large chamber for working the inner bridge. A
door leads from it upon the rampart walk of the east curtain. Above
this were the battlements of the postern, two stages below that of the
contiguous tower. In the Tudor reigns these buildings were encumbered
with additions in brick, timber, and plaster, which still remain, and
much obscure the original details. This postern tower is Perpendicular,
perhaps the work of Richard II.
Besides the bulwarks and towers just described, the inner ward was
strengthened against surprise by several cross walls and gates,
breaking it up into independent sections. One of these gates crossed
from Bell to Byward Tower, and another, it is said, crossed north
of Beauchamp Tower. There were walls with gates across the ward, on
either side of Traitors’ Gate, so that prisoners could be brought in
by water and led across into the Bloody Tower gate, without any chance
of rescue in the outer ward, and indeed without being seen. Another
gateway of a stronger description, and with towers, extended from
Lanthorn to near Cradle Tower; and another also, already mentioned,
opened in the small curtain between Salt and Well Tower. There was at
least one more gateway in the short curtain east from Salt Tower. The
ward, between all these gates, must have been intended to be open; but,
at least since the Tudor reigns, it has been encumbered with private
houses. Here the operations of the Mint were carried on with much
inconvenience; and the north and west limbs of the ward still bear the
name of Mint Street, and the east limb, of Irish Mint Street.
The curtain or scarp wall of this ward was, no doubt, the work of Henry
III., and much of the wall is still original. In the west wall, near
Byward, below a modern battery of two guns, are six loops, probably
old, but lighting modern casemates, and beneath each an air-hole.
Also, on the north front, close west of the new bastion in the wall,
is a pointed arched door, long closed up, but probably an original
water-gate. West of this also is an original loop, no doubt marking the
place of a mural chamber not now accessible.
MIDDLE TOWER.
The modern additions to this curtain consist in a line of casemates,
storehouses, canteens, magazines, and workshops, built against and
concealing its inner face, and giving a rampart or platform of 30 feet
width.
This exterior wall has been built with great care on a broad and deep
foundation, since it shows no sign of settlement, though built in what,
until recently, was a deep and muddy ditch. At one part indeed, close
south of Brass Mount, it has been strengthened by three very clumsy
buttresses of 12 feet in breadth and 22 feet projection. One covers
the internal angle of the bastion; the next is about 40 feet distant;
and the third, at about the same space, is in fact a rectangular mural
tower resembling Galleyman, and contains a small chamber having two
loops on each of its three free faces. Its parapet is new, and pierced
for two guns.
Middle Tower is the outwork of Byward Tower, and a barbican covering
the landward entrance to the fortress. It stands on the counterscarp
of the ditch, at the outer end of the bridge, and was originally
enveloped by a special ditch of its own, a loop from the main ditch of
the place, filled up in the eighteenth century. In design and execution
it resembles closely Byward Tower, though rather smaller, its breadth
being 40 feet, and its height 30 feet from the roadway. It is evidently
of the date of Byward, and like it was open at the rear. It also has
been cased with Portland stone. Its portal has a double portcullis,
gateway, vertical holes, side loops and lodges, and its central part
is ceiled with timber. In neither tower is there now any trace of
a drawbridge. The lodges are tolerably perfect; the stair in the
north-east angle is in use, and corresponds to the Byward oratory; and
in the south-east turret is a lobby and a garderobe, and above these
a chamber 7 feet by 8 feet 6 inches, and again on the leads another
chamber 7 feet 4 inches by 10 feet 10 inches.
MIDDLE TOWER.—FIRST FLOOR.
Between the two gatehouses the ditch is traversed by a stone bridge,
130 feet long, and at the narrowest 20 feet wide. As the towers are
not precisely opposite, the line of the bridge is broken by a slight
zigzag. In the centre appears to have been an opening of 20 feet, now a
stone arch, once the place of a drawbridge, as shown in old drawings.
The Quay does not appear to have had any permanent parapet wall,
which indeed would have interfered with its uses. It was sufficiently
commanded by the defences of the outer ward. It was probably the work
of Henry III., in the twelfth of whose reign it is first mentioned,
and called “Kaia Regis”; and John de Crumbwell, custos 8–9 Edward
III., had then an order for 300 alder poles from Windsor forest for
repairing it. The quay is in length about 1,130 feet, that being the
full frontage of the Tower.
The Ditch.—This, by far the most formidable of the defences of
the Tower, varies in breadth from 100 feet on the east to 110 feet on
the north, and 120 feet on the west or City side. Along the south or
river front it is only 40 feet broad, probably because on that side it
was covered by the wharf, the narrow limits of which did not permit any
great force of assailants to be drawn up upon it; besides which the
tower covering Traitors’ Gate, and the two small postern bridges which
it was convenient to have towards the wharf and river, did not allow
any great breadth of ditch.
The ditch was not only broad, but of great depth, so that when filled
to the level of high water it was scarcely to be passed, and indeed
when the water was low, the mud which accumulated there, and which
made it of late years an unhealthy nuisance, must have been quite as
formidable as a defence. Nevertheless, care was taken to cleanse it,
and the “Liber Albus” informs us that, in the reign of Edward III.,
the penalty for bathing in the Tower fosse, or in the Thames near the
Tower, was death! (vol. i., p. xlix.) Its exterior circuit is computed
at 3,156 feet.
Also, from the great height of the ground to the west and north, the
counterscarp is so very high as to be in itself a considerable obstacle
to crossing the ditch, although, no doubt, this was in other respects
advantageous to besiegers. Besides the main bridge, the ditch was
crossed by St. Thomas’s Tower and the dam between Galleyman and Iron
Gate, all of which served to hold up the water. There were also the
posterns of Iron Gate, Byward, and Cradle Tower.
No doubt the Conqueror’s ditch, even when deepened by Longchamp, was
fed by the Thames; and the water rose and fell with the tide. The
intervention of the wharf and the St. Thomas’s sluice-gate were devised
to make the water in the ditch independent of the tide, and thus add
materially to the strength of the defences. The ditch was drained and
its bottom raised and levelled by the Duke of Wellington during his
constabulate. There are seen in the modern brick revetment of the
counterscarp a number of walled-up arches, resembling sewer-mouths,
which appear to have been intended to facilitate the mining the glacis
in the event of a siege.
The outwork in advance of Middle Tower, though its ditch is filled
up, and its other buildings removed, is still indicated by a line of
stockades, which contain the ticket-office and a small engine-house.
Here stood the Lion Tower, and the Royal Menagerie; and this whole
tête-de-pont was further protected by a smaller tower and
drawbridge of its own, shown in some of the early drawings.
Lions were a part of the royal state, and lodged in the Tower bulwark,
in the reign of Henry I. The Emperor Frederick, in 1235, sent Henry
II. three leopards; and, in 1252, Henry III. received a white bear
from Norway, for whose sustenance, with his keeper, the sheriffs of
London provided fourpence daily, with a muzzle and iron chain, to keep
him when “extra aquam,” and a stout cord to hold him when a-fishing
in the Thames. In 1254, Louis of France sent the king an elephant.
He was brought from Sandwich to the Tower, where the sheriffs were
to build him a strong and suitable house, 40 feet by 20 feet, and to
support him and his keeper. Edward I. and Edward II. kept lions here.
At a time when the allowance for an esquire was one penny per day, a
lion had a quarter of mutton and three-halfpence for the keeper; and,
afterwards, sixpence was the lion’s allowance; the same for a leopard,
and three-halfpence for the keeper. In 16 Edward III., there were a
lion and a lioness, a leopard, and two cat-lions. In 1543, the Duke
of Najara saw here four large and fierce lions, and two leopards. The
menagerie was finally closed about the year 1830. Its establishment on
this particular spot was probably due to Henry III.
The whole outward space was, in 1597, called the Bulwark, and sometimes
the Spur-yard.
Having decided to build an “Arx Palatina,” and having some years’
experience of the value of the proposed site as a temporary camp, the
Conqueror at length determined to erect a regular castle, and entrusted
the work to Gundulf, a monk of Bec, who, in 1077, soon after his
arrival in England, was consecrated Bishop of Rochester.
Gundulf brought with him from Normandy some reputation as an architect,
which vocation he pursued in this country. Rochester Keep, that strong
but graceful tower, placed so judiciously above the ancient passage
of the Medway, and long attributed to the bishop, is now known to be
of later date; and the only existing buildings, besides the White
Tower, which can safely be attributed to him, are the north tower of
Rochester Cathedral, parts of the old crypt, and perhaps a small part
of its west front; also the very perfect and unaltered shell of Malling
Keep, known as St. Leonard’s Tower; possibly the broad, massive tower
of the adjacent church, and, it may be, the Norman portions of that of
Dartford. These remains, however, the White Tower, and the testimony of
many generations, may be regarded as sufficient for the confirmation of
his fame.
A direct evidence for the employment of Gundulf upon the White Tower
is afforded by the “Textus Roffensis,” written about 1143, or within
eighty years of the Conquest, and printed by Hearne. This record
preserves incidentally the fact that Gundulf, while so employed, lodged
at the house of Eadmer Anhœnde, a burgess of London, and a donor to the
bishop’s church at Rochester, where he directed his body and that of
his wife to be buried, and to have an annual obit.[5]
Gundulf was appointed bishop in 1077, and probably his first attention
was given to his cathedral, so that it is supposed he did not commence
the Tower until 1078, up to which time the ground was occupied by
certain temporary defences.
Gundulf reached the age of eighty-four, and lived till 1108, that
is, through the reigns of the Conqueror and Rufus, and to the ninth
of Henry I.; it is, therefore, certain that he lived to see the keep
completed, perhaps by Rufus; and he most probably made some progress in
the walls of the enceinte, and the buildings of the palace, and
perhaps of the Wakefield Tower.
The fortress designed by the Conqueror no doubt included very much of
the space within the present walls. Less would scarcely suffice to
contain a citadel, a palace, and an arsenal; and the liberties were
evidently of no greater area than was necessary.
The west boundary line runs but a few yards outside the counterscarp
of the ditch, and includes only what may be called a narrow glacis,
and nothing of the open space or esplanade usually reserved around a
fortress. It is, however, probable that no permanent exterior defences
were executed by the Conqueror, and that those first commenced were
the curtains from the Wakefield to the present Broad Arrow Tower, and
the cross walls of the Wardrobe Gallery and Cold Harbour, which, with
the keep, included the space set apart for the palace. This was for
many centuries known as the inner ward; and the Wardrobe and Lanthorn
Towers and those of the Cold Harbour Gatehouse, all now destroyed, are
represented in the reign of Elizabeth as cylindrical, and resembling
in design the Wakefield Tower, which is late Norman. It is, therefore,
probable that the old inner or palace ward was first completed.
The rest of the enceinte, forming what is now known as the
inner ward, could not, however, have been much later. According to the
“Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” Gervase, and Le Livere, Rufus was, in 1097,
building about the Tower a wall of sufficient magnitude, with the
new hall at Westminster, to be the cause of heavy taxation, and the
subject of general discontent, augmented, no doubt, by the impregnable
character of his work. The existing curtain of the inner ward, being
from 9 feet to 12 feet thick, from 39 feet to 40 feet high, and of
sound but rude masonry, cannot be later than John, by which reign
the wall of Rufus could not have fallen into decay. It is far more
probable, and quite consistent with the dimensions and character of the
work, that this was the actual wall commenced by Rufus, and upon which
he was employed in 1097.
Bell Tower, indeed, which seems to bond into the curtain, and the base
of which presents masonry very like that of Wakefield, is octagonal,
and its vaulting can scarcely be earlier than John; but Devereux Tower,
which is cylindrical outside, and has round-headed recesses in its
polygonal basement chamber, may be as old as Wakefield, and therefore
in substance the work of Rufus. The vaulting is later, but both may
have been, as at Wakefield, taken down to the first floor at a later
period, to which the vaulting may belong. Beauchamp, Bowyer, and all
the other towers on this wall are evidently later insertions; but the
wall itself, where it remains, as on the west and part of the east and
south fronts, is of a very early character, and not unlike the wall
of John at Corfe and the earlier one attributed to Robert Consul at
Cardiff.
Most of the chroniclers record a violent storm that swept over London
towards the close of the eleventh century. Le Livere dates it Friday,
27th October, and Malmesbury, 28th November, 1091, and says it unroofed
St. Mary-le-Bow, and destroyed 600 houses, as houses then were.
Stowe adds that the White Tower was damaged “by tempest and winde sore
shaken,” and that it was repaired by Rufus and Henry I.; but he gives
no authority for this statement, which the extreme solidity of the
building renders very improbable. The outworks, however, both wall and
towers, if in course of construction, with scaffolding up, might very
well have suffered severely.
The Tower, therefore, of the close of the reign of Rufus, and of those
of Henry I. and Stephen, was probably composed of the White Tower with
a palace ward upon its south-east side, and a wall, probably that we
now see, and certainly along its general course, including what is now
known as the inner ward. No doubt there was a ditch, but probably not a
very formidable one.
Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, and the faithful and rapacious
minister of Rufus,—“pacitator Ranulphus, vir pessimus,”—by his severe
exactions greatly promoted the works of the Tower. Singularly enough,
he is the first person known to have been imprisoned there. Henry, on
his accession, and by the advice of his council, 15th August, 1100,
shut up Flambard in the Tower. Palgrave says he was lodged in the
uppermost or council-chamber of the White Tower, under the custody
of Walter de Magnaville, the hereditary constable. Probably his
imprisonment was only intended to satisfy the popular cry, for two
shillings, at that time a considerable sum, was allowed for his daily
sustenance. He employed it, as is said, in feasting his keepers; and
having received a rope in a flagon, took advantage of their drunken
state to let himself down from the window of the south gallery, on
the night of the 4th February, 1101, taking his pastoral staff with
him. The rope proved too short for the descent of 65 feet, and he was
injured by a fall, but he escaped in safety to Normandy, and, as is
well known, lived to recover his see of Durham, where he completed the
cathedral, added a moat to the Palatine castle, founded Norham on the
Tweed, built Framwell Gate bridge, and endowed the hospital of Kepyer.
The Tower was probably from the first a state prison, for in 1106 the
Earl of Mortaigne, taken with Robert Duke of Normandy by Henry I., was,
says Eadmer, shut up there. The Pipe Roll of 21 Henry I. records “£17.
0s. 6d., inoperatione Turris Lond.”
In the time of Stephen the Tower was regarded as impregnable. Geoffrey,
grandson of Geoffrey de Magnaville, the companion of the Conqueror, and
the third hereditary constable, was created Earl of Essex by the king,
who in 1140 kept Whitsun in the Tower. “Eodem anno, 1140, in Pentecoste
resedit Rex Londiniæ in Turri, tantum modo Episcopo Sagiensi presente:
cæteri vel fastidierunt, vel timuerunt venire.” [R. de Hoveden.] The
new earl proved false, and shifted his allegiance to the empress, who,
by charter in 1141, confirmed him in his earldom and the constableship.
When the power of Maud declined, the citizens, to whom Geoffrey was
as odious as his fortress, laid siege to it. Their efforts were so
unsuccessful that on one occasion the earl made a raid as far as
Fulham, and captured the bishop.
In 1143 the earl trusted himself in the royal presence at St. Alban’s,
depending on the king’s word. The temptation to obtain the Tower was
too great,—“magis ex necessitate quam honestate,”—he was detained,
and the Tower was his ransom. Stephen held it until 1153, close upon
the conclusion of his reign, when, by the Treaty of Winchester, he
gave it up to Richard de Lacy, the Justiciary, who was to hold it
until Stephen’s death, when it was to pass to Henry, which accordingly
was done in 1154. It is clear, therefore, that at that time the
fortifications of the Tower were both complete and strong; and this, in
the absence of a wet ditch, which it will be shown did not then exist,
could scarcely be the case with walls of inferior strength to those now
seen.
Henry II. is said to have placed Becket in command of the Tower, the
government of which had ceased to be hereditary. But there is no proof
of this, or that Becket repaired it; though at a later period, indeed,
one of his demands, as archbishop, was the custody of Rochester Castle
and the Tower. By this time “London’s lasting shame” had attained its
gloomy reputation, and Fitz-Stephen describes the “Arx Palatina” as
“great and strong, with encircling walls rising from a deep foundation,
and built with mortar tempered with the blood of beasts.”
The Pipe Rolls of this reign contain frequent entries of large sums
issued for the repair of the king’s houses in the Tower, his chapel,
and his gaol. In 2 Henry II., 6s. 1d. was paid for carrying the king’s
breastplates to the Tower; but the regular series of accounts does
not begin until 13 Henry II., and ends with 34. The entries for
Westminster and the Tower are also much mixed up together, though
sometimes distinct. Thus in 13 Henry II. the king’s houses in the
two places and the queen’s chamber cost £64, and, in 19 Henry II.,
£60 was paid for the repairs of the Tower and of the houses in it.
In the preceding year the king’s houses in the bailey of the Tower
cost £21. In 20 Henry II., Alnod, the engineer, had £6. 13s. 4d. for
works at the Tower, and afterwards 100s. Similar payments continually
occur, sometimes for lead for the repairs of the chapel, sometimes for
carriage of timber and planks, sometimes for the kitchen, the gateways
of the gaol, the repairs of the houses, and sometimes for the Tower
itself.
The necessity for each expenditure is often certified to by the view
of two officers, Edward Blund and William Magnus; the works were
executed by the engineer Alnod; and the brief, authorising payment, was
signed either by the king himself, or by Richard de Lucy or Ranulph de
Glanville, no doubt as justiciars. The sums paid varied from 1s. 4d. to
£64, and the total for the thirteen years of which the rolls remain, is
£215. 15s. and 50 marks.
When in February, 1190, Cœur de Lion departed from Normandy to the
East, he placed the Tower in charge of William Longchamp, Bishop of
Ely and Chancellor, sharing the power of chief justiciary with Pudsey,
Bishop of Durham, to which the Pope added the office of legate. These
combined honours seem to have turned Longchamp’s head. Always of
intense activity of character, he spurned all colleagues in his power.
His first act on reaching England seems to have been to provide for his
personal security by girdling the Tower with a wall and deep ditch,
which he proposed to fill from the Thames. In this, however, he failed,
after spending a large sum of money.[6]
The wall was probably that of the outer ward, which would be necessary
to retain the banks of the ditch, and the commencement of that which
still remains. The failure could scarcely be in the admission of the
Thames, which required only a certain depth of excavation, but was
rather in the retaining it full at low tide, so as to make it really a
wet ditch. This important object was attained in a later reign, by a
new and ingenious arrangement. In his excavations, Longchamp encroached
upon land belonging to Trinity Church, East Smithfield, and took a mill
from St. Katherine’s Hospital. These trespasses were much complained
of, and seem to have been the same on account of which a compensating
rent-charge was afterwards paid by Edward I. There is still a small
burial-ground on the east glacis of the Tower, which is said to be a
part of the land then taken. There was also an earlier trespass on
Church lands by the constables, for Geoffrey, Earl of Essex, took by
force from Trinity Priory, in East Smithfield, land near the Tower to
make a vineyard, which was not restored to that church until towards
1137.
Longchamp, whose patent directed the lieges to obey him, even as
the king himself, commenced by imprisoning Bishop Pudsey, his rival
justiciar. His unpopularity was fostered by Prince John, who headed
a party against him, and took occasion of his ill-treatment of the
Archbishop of York to summon Longchamp to appear before a council at
Loddon, by Reading. Longchamp refused compliance, but retired before
John’s superior force to London, where he entered the Tower with all
his train, pressed by the citizens, who took part against him and
blockaded the fortress by land and water. John, with many barons and
bishops, reached London on the 8th of October, 1191, and held a council
in the chapter-house, in St. Paul’s Churchyard, on the 9th, summoning
the people by the sound of the bell. Here the Archbishop of Rouen
and William Mareschal produced Richard’s declaration from Messina,
limiting the independent powers of the justiciar, whom the meeting
then deposed by acclamation. Four earls and as many bishops conveyed
this sentence to Longchamp, who fell senseless upon the floor. On the
following morning, at an early hour, John assembled an immense host in
East Smithfield, a great green plain near the Tower, and summoned the
justiciar to a parley. He surrendered upon terms at once, far too soon
for his credit, and marched out with his followers and household stuff
to Bermondsey, whence with much difficulty and through various dangers
he reached Normandy.[7] The Archbishop of Rouen then took charge of the
Tower; but the chancellor, as is well known, retained or resumed his
office, and on November 21, 1194, the well-known William Fitz-Osbert
impleaded his brother Richard in the Curia Regis (“Rot. Cur. Regis.”
xi., xvii.) for having said, “In recompense for the money taken from
me by the chancellor within the Tower of London, I would lay out forty
marks to purchase a chain in which to hang both king and chancellor.”
Various entries in the Pipe Rolls of Richard show that the usual
repairs of the Tower, and especially of the royal apartments therein,
still went on. Unfortunately, although the sums are given, the detail
of their outlay is very generally omitted.
The entries extend from the first to the tenth of the reign, and relate
to nine years, during which about £610 was spent on the Tower and its
houses. The recipient was sometimes Wm. Puincell, the constable; at
others, Jordan de Turri, Richard le Duc, John Fitz-Erlecum, and others.
Sometimes under the king’s brief, sometimes the chancellor’s. In one
year, lime cost £46. 9s. 6d. In the first of the king, 50 marcs were
spent upon the “Royal Chapel in the Tower.” The ditches are mentioned 5
Richard I.
Longchamp’s reign was so short that it is difficult to understand how
he managed to execute as much as he undoubtedly did. The rolls of the
early years of Richard I. do not indeed show above one or two hundred
pounds of outlay, but the chancellor had the command of other funds;
and one cause of his excessive unpopularity with the citizens was the
avidity with which he took upon himself to tax them.
Prince John, when he succeeded to the throne in 1199, was not
inattentive to the wants of the Tower. In his two first years, Elias,
the engineer, was employed upon the king’s houses and works, and
similar entries appear in the fifth, tenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth
years. In the sixteenth the sum was considerable—£117. 15s. 8d.; and in
the seventeenth the charge, £12, is for building the mud or “clay wall
between the Tower [precinct] and city,” which wall is often referred to
in later surveys. On the whole, the Pipe Rolls of the reign are scanty
as regards the Tower, but they are in some degree replaced by entries
upon the Mise, Close, and Patent Rolls, which show that it was kept up
as a royal residence, and that the king occasionally stayed there.
In 1209 and 1210, 9s. 4d. were given in alms to one hundred poor there;
and in the latter year Osmund, a knight bound for Poictou, received
a gift of ten marcs, and, to buy a horse, a hundred shillings from
the king. This was given in the “Church of St. Peter at the Tower of
London”; and is the earliest known mention of that building. Here also,
on Sunday, the morrow of St. Philip and Jacob, Steffan, the messenger
of the emperor, received half a marc on his return to his lord, and
other payments were made here.
In 1212 the Archdeacon of Durham and Philip de Ulecote are ordered to
send in all haste to London thirty carratas (cartloads) of lead for
covering the Tower; and, in 1213, among orders for repairs for the
castles of Rochester, Canterbury, and Guildford, is mention of carriage
of timber and “busca” (faggots), for the works of the Castle of Dover
and the Tower of London. It was about this time that the city ditch
was deepened, and widened to a breadth of 200 feet. In 1215, Henry de
Nevill was to supply ten oaks for the works at the Tower, five from
within Havering Park and five from outside it.
It was also in 1215 that the barons seized upon London, and that the
Tower was given over to be held by the Archbishop of Canterbury until
Assumption Day as a pledge for the king’s performance of certain
engagements. The rights of either party to the Tower were suspended,
and the king was not to reinforce the garrison. The great charter
was signed 15th June. The barons, however, continued virtually in
possession until the arrival of the Dauphin, to whom it was given up in
1216, and by him held until he left the kingdom.
Mr. Hardy, in his valuable “Itinerary of King John,” shows that he
executed instruments at the Tower upon seventy-two days during his
reign of seventeen years and a half. In 1204, he was there 28–30th
January, 27–30th May, 2–3rd November. In 1205, 28th April and 13–16th
August. In 1207, 2nd July. In 1208, 21st January, 10th, 19th–21st
February. In 1209, 9th October. In 1210, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 19th
February, 2nd May, and 27th October. In 1211, 1–3rd and 18th April. In
1212, 18–20th May; 2–4th June; and 20–22nd September. In 1213, 16th and
17th April; and 21–23rd, 26–29th December. In 1214, 2–5th, 12th, 13th
January; and 29th–31st October. In 1215, 1–6th and 14–18th March; and
19th April.
As Henry III. has usually been regarded as the builder of much of
the Tower as it now stands, and did undoubtedly execute considerable
works there, it will be convenient here to examine into the probable
condition of the fortress at the time of his accession.
It has been shown, from structural evidence, that the Wakefield Tower,
and probably the shell of Devereux Tower, and perhaps that of Bell
Tower, are at least as old as the reign of John; and that there is
great reason to regard the original Wardrobe and Lanthorn Tower and its
curtains, and the Cold Harbour wall and Gate towers, and the contained
palace, all now destroyed, as of the age of Wakefield Tower. Also, as
St. Peter’s Church existed in the reign of John, and was “apud Turrim,”
or within the walls, these, between the Bell and Devereux Towers, where
they pass close to the church, were also then existing. We should
thus have the wall of enceinte of the present inner ward, from
Lanthorn Tower to Wakefield, Bell, and Devereux Towers, as the extent
of the fortress on the south and west fronts. The north curtain, now
mostly destroyed, seems to have been of the same date as is the east
curtain, though probably some of the towers upon these—the Bowyer,
Jewel, Constable’s Broad Arrow, and Salt—are of later reigns.
Then there was the ditch deepened and widened by Longchamp, with a wall
on the line of that of the present outer ward. The quay and the river
front, from Iron Gate to Byward, with St. Thomas’s Tower, were not then
constructed, nor was the Bloody or Gatehouse Tower. Probably the inner
ward wall abutted direct upon the river shore.
Henry III. began his reign in 1216, and the attention of his prudent
guardian, the “rector regis et regni,” seems at once to have been
turned to the Tower. In 1217 the sheriff of Essex and Herts is to pay
to Nicholas Rowland £10 for repairs of the king’s houses in the Tower;
to which is added, in the next year, £8. 9s. 11d. and £19. 9s. 11d.,
also to the same Nicholas. About the same time (2 Henry III.) 6s. 1d.
is paid for the transporting the king’s breastplates (loricas) to the
Tower; 3 Henry III., £9. 13s. 1d. is paid for repairs of the king’s
hall, and the broken wall of the chamber; and the houses within the
ballium of the Tower are to be repaired upon the view and testimony of
certain lawful men; and (5 Henry III.), at a cost of 17s., four tables
“ad mensam,” for the use of the king, are to be placed in the Tower.
The year before this (4 Henry III.), the Pleas of the Crown, in the
City of London, were heard before the justices in the Tower.
In 1221, Peter, Bishop of Winchester, was to have £11. 10s. for the
repairs of the king’s house, executed when the Tower was in his hands;
and Richard de Munfitchet was to supply Stephen de Segrave, the
constable, with timber of the best quality, from Havering, for planks
for the completion of the “jarellum” [jarolium, barrier] about the Tower.
The king was there in person in these years, for his expenses for five
days there, in 1219, were £19. 1s. 7¼d.; and next year 100 marcs were
paid towards his expenses there during Lent, and 200 marcs repaid to
Pandulph the legate, then Bishop of Norfolk, advanced on the same
account. In that year, also, the king had at the Tower a supply of
10 lampreys, part of a debt due from the city of Gloucester to his
lamprey-loving father.
1221 was a busy year at the Tower. Many military implements and
stores, and seven cartloads of prisoners, were brought in by Alex. de
Sabrichtsworth, from Biham, the surrendered castle of Wm. de Fortibus,
at a cost of 5s. 10d. Henry was there 28th February and 5th March. The
next year also included several accounts connected with the siege of
Biham. The works were also continued. Stephen de Segrave had 30 marcs
for the repairs of the ballium wall; and Peter de St. Edward, with
Andrew Buckerell, the chamberlain, 70 marcs of the amerciament levied
on the London vintners, for works at the Tower. 8th December, 1221,
Nicholas Mazon, who made the well, had five marcs. Timber and materials
were sent in by the sheriffs of Essex and Bucks.
In 1222, 8s. 1d. was paid for the repairs of the wardrobe in the king’s
chamber at the Tower, and for making a chimney in the same, and 10s.
for a robe for Robert le Champenies, clerk of the works. Chimneys in
those days were not always flues within the wall, but shafts of wood,
or other temporary material, placed against it.
7 Henry III., 1222–3. The Close Roll credits Richard Benger and Thomas
Lamberde with £10. 12s. 1d., which they paid by the king’s precept to
Peter of Poictou and his companions, keepers of the works of the “New
Turrelle,” or turret, of the Tower of London, for the work of the said
turret. Mr. Hugo applies this entry to the Bell Tower; it may, with
equal or more probability, be applied to the superstructure of the
Wakefield Tower.
Pandulph the legate appears to have been custos in 1223, and in that
capacity entertained at the Tower John de Brienne, titular King of
Jerusalem, and the Grand Master of the Hospital, then in England to
promote a crusade. In this year the king acknowledged the receipt of
“unum austurcum” (a goshawk) at the Tower. John de Monmouth and the
vendors of “cableicium,” or underwood, in Dean Forest, out of the
king’s gift thereof to the Priory of Llantony, are to find 40 chevrons
for the repairs of the Tower; and the sheriffs of London are to restore
the “palum coram postico,” or “gallows before the postern” of the
Tower, and the gallows outside of the Tower. 26th May, 1224, the king’s
crown was lodged in the Tower by the treasurer.
The Pipe Roll of 9 Henry III., 1224–5, contains various entries
relating to the Tower:—34s. 1d. was paid for “pro husciis de cute et de
feltrio [housings of hide and of felt or compressed wool, or gambeson],
ad balistas Regis, etc., cooperiendas,” for housing the king’s balistæ
which are in the Tower; and for iron and steel (ascero) delivered to
the constable for the works there, 2 marcs. Also for charcoal (carbo),
for the king’s smiths’ work there, 8s. 6d.; and to Thomas de Blunvill,
50 marcs for the king’s works; and for charcoal for making the king’s
“quarells” (cross-bow bolts), &c., by “Thomas Faber” (the smith), in
the Tower, 8s. 7d.; and for mending the king’s houses in the Tower,
29s. 7¼d.
In the tenth year, besides the sum of 42s. and 3s. 11d., for charcoal
for works, Thos. de Blunvill received the value of £12. 3s. in six
caretatis, or cartloads, of lead, “ad novam turrellam turris Lond:
cooperiendam,” and four loads, value £8. 0s. 19d., for the same
purpose; so that the lead on the roof of the new turret cost at least
£20. 4s. 7d. At this time Blunvill had £40 per annum as custos.
In the two next years, 1226–8, 96s. 11d. was paid for charcoal, Thomas
Faber being the master-workman; and Henry Fitz-Alchi had 100 marcs for
the Tower works. For the three following years the rolls are silent.
In 1232, Hubert de Burgh had a fee of £50 per annum as constable; and
in 16 Henry III., 113s. 10d. was paid for iron, steel, and charcoal,
purchased and delivered to Roger le Smith, in the Tower, for making
quarells and other work.
In 1233, the Tower became the enforced residence of Isabel, the king’s
sister, until her marriage with the Emperor Frederick, in 1235; and
28th April, 1236, Henry adopted the unusual course of adjourning a
council of his magnates to the Tower. The assembly, as was to be
expected, was but thinly attended, and in consequence was further
adjourned to Westminster.
On 2nd March, 1238, 22 Henry III., the Liberate Roll contains an entry,
which is repeated as follows in the corresponding Pipe Roll:—“Et in
cameris Regis in turri Lond: reparandis et chimenee Camere Regine
perficiendis et uno spiro de bordis bono et decenti faciendo inter
cameram et capellam nove turrelle eiusdem turris prope aulam Regis
versus tamisiam xvili. iijs. viijd. per breve,
etc.” “And for repairing the king’s chamber in the Tower of London, and
completing the chimney in the queen’s chamber, and for making a good
and fitting spur [partition] of boards between the chamber and chapel
of the new turret of the same Tower, near the King’s Hall, towards the
Thames, £16. 3s. 8d., by brief, &c.” This is one of the few notices of
repairs the precise place of which can be identified. The new turret
is undoubtedly the first floor of the Wakefield Tower, known to have
been near the King’s Hall and towards the Thames, and of which the
chapel, or oratory, still remains.
In the same 1238, 23rd November, the Liberate Roll shows the king to
have ordered the constable to cause the walls of the queen’s chamber,
“which is within our chamber at the Tower, to be whitewashed and
pointed,” and within the pointings to be painted with flowers; “and
to cause the drain of the privy chamber to be made in the fashion of
a hollow column, as our beloved servant John of Ely shall more fully
declare to thee.”
In the 24 Henry III. is a charge of £30. 16s. 4d. for purchasing and
conveying to the Tower “una navata,” or shipload, of marble, and four
shiploads of Purbeck marble, for the works of the Tower. It is only in
the cills of the two windows of the sacrarium of St. Thomas’s Tower
that Purbeck stone has been discovered in position; but much of this
material remains upon the rampart walks and in other places in the
fortress, whither, no doubt, much of it was imported in this reign,
and especially at this time, for the works then in progress, which in
1239 were considerable. A good deal of Kentish rag was used, and both
Ryegate and Caen stone for ashlar. Often the material for building
was brought a great distance. Henry II. and Edward III. used Egremont
stone for Windsor. Matt. Paris describes the treasury as well filled,
which unusual condition, and looming troubles of the realm, probably
disposed Henry to add to the security of his stronghold. The new works
were unpopular in the city, the citizens fearing, and not without
reason, that they would be employed in some way to their detriment. On
this subject they addressed a remonstrance to the king, who assured
them that the works were not intended to be employed to their injury.
“I only,” said he, “imitate my brother, reputed a wiser man than I, in
rebuilding my castles.”
It seems that a fine gateway and a wall were completed, but fell
suddenly on St. George’s night (23rd April), 1240, and were immediately
rebuilt by the king. A year later, in 1241, the same structures, or
as much of them as had been rebuilt, again fell down, and this time
the citizens found a supernatural reason for the event. On the night
of the second fall, says Matt. Paris, a certain grave and reverend
priest saw a robed archbishop, cross in hand, who gazed sternly upon
the walls with which the king was then girdling the tower, and striking
them sharply, asked, “Why build ye these?” on which the newly-built
work fell as though shattered by an earthquake. The priest, too alarmed
to accost the prelate, addressed himself to the shade of an attendant
clerk, “Who, then, is the archbishop?” “St. Thomas the Martyr,” was the
answer, “by birth a citizen, who resents these works, undertaken in
scorn and to the prejudice of the citizens, and destroys them beyond
the power of restoration.” On which the priest remarked, “What outlay
and labour of the hands he has destroyed!” “Had it been,” said the
clerk, “simply that the starving and needy artificers thence promised
themselves food, it had been tolerable; but seeing that the works were
undertaken, not for the defence of the realm, but to the hurt of the
citizens, even had not St. Thomas destroyed them, they had been swept
away utterly by St. Edmund, his successor.”
That night the priest told his tale, and next morning the walls about
the tower, built at a charge of about 12,000 marcs, were seen upon the
ground, to the surprise, but by no means to the grief, of the citizens,
to whom they had been as a thorn in the eye. Notwithstanding the
prediction of St. Thomas, the works were at once resumed, and this time
with complete success.
No doubt the wall and gateway were St. Thomas’s Water-gate and the
adjacent curtain along the south face of the fortress, and upon the
bank of the river, where the wet ground and the treacherous character
of the London clay, exposed more or less in the old city ditch and that
of Longchamp, would render the archbishop’s task an easy one. The story
may be taken to show that in 1239–40 Henry was engaged in extensive
works about the Tower, including the outer ward wall and tower, the
quay, and the present ditch; and the present works show that they
were of sufficient importance to be replaced, at whatever cost, when
destroyed by an accident. Probably the architect learned experience by
the event; for it is remarkable that no serious mark of settlement from
defective foundation has been observed either in the work of the outer
ward or in any other part of the fortress, and this is more singular
because part of the masonry must have traversed the line of the old
city ditch. This stability is probably due to the great breadth of the
foundations, and to the fact that the fortress contains no underground
chambers, the towers below the ground level, and sometimes far above
it, being solid.
The resumption of the works on the wall and west gateway did not lead
to the neglect of the royal residence within. 24th February, 1240, 24
Henry III., the king, according to the Liberate Roll, thus addressed
the custos of the works:—“We command you to cause the chamber of the
queen, in the aforesaid tower, to be wainscotted without delay, and to
be thoroughly whitened internally, and newly painted with roses; and to
cause to be made a wall [partition] in the fashion of wainscot between
the chamber and the wardrobe of the same, and let it be entirely
covered externally with tile; and also cause one great chamber in the
same tower to be entirely whitewashed and newly painted, and all the
windows of the same chamber to be made anew with new wood and bolts and
hinges, and to be painted with our arms, and barred with iron where
needful. Moreover, repair and mend all the glass windows in the chapel
of St. John the Baptist within the said tower, where necessary; and
repair all the windows in the great chamber towards the Thames with
new wood, with new bolts and hinges, and bar them well with iron; and
in the corner of the same chamber make a great round turret towards
the Thames, so that the drain of the last chamber may descend into
the Thames; and make a new cowl on the top of the kitchen of the great
tower.”
The Liberate Roll of the same year, January, 1240, orders “a mantel” to
be painted in the Tower, with a personification of Winter with a sad
visage and miserable contortions of the body.
And on the 10th December following (25 Henry III.) the keeper is
further ordered, “To repair the granary within the same tower, &c.,
and to cause all the leaden gutters of the great tower, through which
rain-water should fall from the summit of the same tower, to be carried
down to the ground; so that the wall of the said tower, which has
been newly whitewashed, may be in no wise injured by the dropping
of rain-water, nor be easily weakened. And make on the same tower on
the south side, at the top, deep alures of good and strong timber,
entirely and well covered with lead, through which people may look even
unto the foot of the said tower, and ascend, and better defend it, if
need should be. And also whitewash the whole chapel of St. John the
Evangelist in the same tower, and make in the same chapel three glass
windows, one, to wit, on the north part, with a certain small figure of
Mary holding her child; the other, on the south side, with the [subject
of the] Trinity; and the third on the same south side, with St. John
the Apostle and Evangelist; and paint the cross and beam beyond the
altars of the same chapel, and with good colours. And cause to be made
and painted two fair images, where they may be best and most decently
made in the same chapel, one of St. Edward holding a ring and giving it
to St. John the Evangelist. And whitewash all the old wall around our
aforesaid tower.”
From these orders, we learn that the chapel in the White Tower was
whitewashed, glazed, had three painted windows, and a painted beam and
rood behind the altar, besides painted figures, no doubt in fresco, on
the wall, of St. Edward and St. John the Evangelist. The great chamber
towards the Thames, being enumerated in conjunction with the chapel,
might be supposed to be the state-room in the White Tower; but “the
great round turret towards the Thames, with the contained drain,” could
not apply to the White Tower, nor indeed to any of the existing towers
on the Thames front. It may have been the Lanthorn Tower.
The White Tower is spoken of as newly whitewashed. This was no doubt
intended to make good any irregularities in the masonry, for 28 Henry
III., the tower at Corfe was ordered to be pargetted with mortar where
necessary, and the whole exterior to be whitewashed. It is not quite
clear what were the alures, so minutely specified, on the top of the
south front of the White Tower; probably a bretasche or hoarding, since
no other work would enable the defenders to see the foot of the wall.
It might have been supposed that at so great a height no extra defence
from missiles would have been necessary, and supposing the inner ward
to be taken, it would be from the higher ground on the north, rather
than on the south side, that the effect of archery or warlike engines
would be the greatest.
In this same 25 Henry III. Peter Bacun and Richard de Fresingfeld and
their fellows, keepers of the Tower works, had £36; also £24. 40d. was
paid for twenty breastplates and twenty halbergeons, purchased for the
defence of the Tower, and delivered to the constable. So important were
the works at this time that an order was made that “before closing the
Exchequer the barons were to audit the accounts of the custos of the
works of the king’s Tower of London.” In 26 Henry III. the chaplain
ministering in the Tower chapel had 50s. per annum.
Among the regulations in use about this time were several relating to
the legal position of the Tower, recorded in the Liber Albus. Thus,
when the Exchequer was closed, the mayor was to be presented at the
Tower, and the Pleas of the City with the crown were sometimes held
there; and when this was the case the city barons were to place their
own “janitors” outside the Tower gate, and the king’s janitor was to
be on the inside. They further had an “ostiarius” outside the door of
the hall where the pleas were held, to introduce the barons, and the
king had an “ostiarius inside.” The hall was no doubt the building
afterwards superseded by the office of Ordnance, and the entrance to
which is thought to have been by the modernised doorway close east of
the Wakefield Tower.
The next entry discovered is upon the Liberate Roll, 29 Henry III.,
3rd December, 1244, by which the constable of the Tower is ordered
to deliver to Edward Fitz-Otho as much lead as shall be necessary to
execute certain specified works at Westminster. It was in this year
that Griffith-ap-Llewelyn, in attempting to escape by a rope from his
prison in the Tower, fell and broke his neck. Griffith was corpulent,
and the White Tower whence he let himself down was lofty. His rope was
composed of bed linen and the like, and broke. 30th April, the king
publicly declares this unfortunate accident, and attributes the neglect
to the attendants, whose duty it was to take charge of the prisoner.
31 Henry III., 1246–7, the constable had sixty marcs for constructing
“quandam turrellam,” a certain turret; and next year forty marcs more
were paid for making a certain turret, a privy chamber, and other
works. 33 Henry III., fourteen cartloads of lead were purchased for
£32. 9s. 10d., and delivered to Peter Blund, the constable.
In 34 Henry III. the Pipe Roll shows Edward of Westminster and the
constable to have had sixty marcs for Tower works, and the keepers
thirty marcs for repairing and covering the king’s houses and for lead
for the works. Next year, 1250–1, ten marcs went for repairing and
covering walls and turrets, and £4. 8s. 6d. for two loads of lead for
the same operation upon the king’s houses.
37 Henry III., Adam de Lamburn, master of the Tower works, had £10, and
the keepers, also for works, £30, and Adam again £12, and next year the
keepers for works fifty marcs more. 39 Henry III., 1254–5, £22. 20d.
was paid for a house for the king’s elephant, 40 feet long by 20 feet
wide. This was a present from the King of France, and is said by Matt.
Paris to have been the first elephant seen north of the Alps. There
was also paid for repairs of houses and turrets, £59. 6s. 2d. Next
year, £52. 11s. 3d. was paid for works begun by the sheriff of the year
preceding, and for Tower shortcomings £37. 2s. 9d.; and 41 Henry III.,
£90. 14s. 9d. for stones for completing the already commenced Tower
quay, and for the Great Wardrobe and other deficiencies.
42 Henry III., 1257–8, two sums of 101s. 8d. and £4. 12s. 6d. were paid
for lead gutters and other repairs; and 43 Henry III., £36. 3s. 8d. for
repairs of the king’s houses, and for making a new stable and repairing
an old one, and gutters, and a “claustura,” or partition, for the same
tower, £17. 15s. 7d.
This was the year, 1258, in which, under the Provisions of Oxford,
the barons seized the Tower and placed in it Hugh le Bigod as custos.
There was in this year a brief,—“In emendacionem planchicii[8] turris
Lond: et turrella ejusdem turris versus aquam cooperienda, etc.” Henry
soon afterwards, by the permission of the pope, broke faith with his
subjects, and regained the Tower, where he was resident in February,
1261, and ordered 40s. to Theodore de Castell for iron for the King’s
Tower works, taken from him.
The circumstances of the country forced the king into active measures
for the conservation of the fortress. He spent Christmas, 1260, there
with his queen, and employed the money at his command in completing
the defences. Probably it was about this time that the water-gate was
ready, and the tidal ditch converted into a wet moat. Matt. Paris
mentions the efforts now made to strengthen the place, and how the king
at this time invited the citizens to swear fidelity to him, and to take
service in his army then mustering outside the city. He also again
named the Tower as the place of meeting for a Parliament to be holden
21st February, 1261, 45 Henry III.
The councillors did not respond to the summons. The king kept Easter
in the fortress, whither the bailiffs of Gloucester were directed,
18th March, to send up daily as many lampreys as they could take; and,
17th April, the bailiffs of Waltham were to supply 60s. worth of good
fine bread and loaves of four for a penny, and to send them to the
royal pantler at the Tower for the usual dole on Easter eve. Similar
perquisitions were addressed to the bailiffs of Barking and Dartford,
to those of Kingston and Watford, to the extent of 40s., and to the
mayor and sheriffs of London to £20. In all, £33 worth of bread was to
be distributed. There were also orders for 164 tunics on the part of
the king and queen, to be delivered to the royal almoner, and 21 tunics
on the part of the royal children; all to be distributed to the poor
according to custom. Henry remained at the Tower till about the 20th
April.
Prince Edward returned to England in that year, but did not act with
his father, whose advisers he distrusted. The king, however, seems
to have held the Tower, and kept Christmas of 1261 within its walls.
Thence, leaving John Mansell in charge, he went to Dover, and so by
Rochester to Winchester for Whitsuntide. There, however, the barons
prepared to seize him, and he retired to the Tower, where he remained
till October. Christmas of 1262 he again spent at the Tower.
After some time passed beyond sea, and a Christmas at Canterbury, Henry
failed to meet his enemies at Worcester, and returned, 47 Henry III.,
to the Tower, where, with his queen, Prince Edward, and the King of
the Romans, he consulted with the mayor and aldermen of London on the
subject of de Montfort, and soon afterwards with that nobleman himself.
One result was the placing Hugh le Despenser in charge of the Tower.
It was in this year that the queen, leaving the Tower by water to join
the prince at Windsor, was hooted at and pelted by the populace on the
bridge, and forced to put back. In the same year, John Sperling, at a
cost of £7, erected a “palicium,” or palisade, between the Tower and
the city wall; and two years later he had altogether £25. 10s. 3d. for
covering-in the king’s houses, repairing the king’s garderobe, &c.
Henry was again at the Tower in 1265, after the battle of Evesham; and
in 1268 the fortress, then commanded by Hugh Fitz-Otho, and containing
the papal legate, Ottobon, was besieged by Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester.
The Jews, who with their families had been harboured in the Tower,
contributed personally to its defence. Gloucester threw up earthworks
and attempted a blockade; but in May and June, Henry, approaching by
Windsor and Stratford, encamped there for two months, and, throwing in
a reinforcement, brought out the legate by the south postern towards
the river, and established him with the army at Stratford, forcing
Gloucester to sue for peace.[9]
The hall of the Tower and other houses cost £20 in repairs in 1268–9,
and in other repairs £12 in the next year; but nothing is recorded
concerning the following and two closing years of the long reign of
Henry III.
With the death of Henry and the earlier years of his son the history
of the Tower, as a specimen of military architecture, may be said
to decline, and its history as a state prison, if not to begin,
to preponderate. Edward at once continued and completed the works
commenced by his father, and probably was thus employed for ten or
twelve years. In 1274, 2 Edward, the treasurer was to pay 200 marcs
towards the work of the ditch, then nearly made, about the bulwark.
This was the loop ditch surrounding the barbican, planned by Henry
III., but no doubt then first excavated. Besides this, in 1287, the
main ditch seems to have been under enlargement, and its encroachment
upon St. Katherine’s land was valued in 1302 at 73s. per annum. The
clay taken out was sold by the constable to the tylers working in East
Smithfield. In 1289, it yielded 20s., but had averaged £7—about £100
in our day. Bayley tells that 600 Jews were at one time imprisoned
here by Edward, 1281–2, as clippers of the coin. On 8th October, 1303,
the king, then at Kinloss, ordered the Abbot of Westminster and his 80
monks to be imprisoned in the Tower, on a charge of stealing £100,000
of the royal treasure. The following mandate, of three years’ later
date, shows the form in which prisoners were committed. It relates to
a Scottish gentleman of rank. “Mons: P: de Graham et vadletz, soient
enveez, par bon conduyt, a Londres, et livrez au Conestable de la
Tour illueques: et q’il les face garder en fers, en bon et sur lieu,
denz meisme la Tour, si sauuement, et si surement, come le Conestable
voudra respondre de eux, corps pour corps; et q’il lor face trouver lor
sustenance meanement.”
In 1307 occurs a curious sanitary order. “Whereas Margaret, Queen of
England, is about to dwell awhile in the Tower, the mayor and sheriffs,
to prevent infection of the air, ‘per accensionem rogorum,’ are to
prohibit and punish any one ‘burning pyres’ or doing anything by which
the air can be corrupted.” Dated, Carlisle, 28th June.
Edward II. was more dependent upon the Tower for personal safety than
as a prison. His eldest daughter, hence called “Jane de la Tour,” was
here born. In 1312, he put the Tower in a state of defence against
his barons; and, in 1324, shut here the two lords, Roger Mortimer of
Wigmore and his namesake of Chirk. Their escape is described in the
“Opus Chronicorum.” They were shut up “in eminentiori et arctiori loco
Turris,” which should mean the White Tower. They drugged the drink of
their keepers, and in a stormy night escaped by breaking the wall, and
thus reached the annexed palace kitchen, from the top of which, by a
rope-ladder, and aided from within the walls, they reached the Thames
and thus fled the country.
Two years later, Mortimer of Wigmore returned with the queen, and took
arms against Edward, who put the Tower in order, sending thither 100
coats of mail (Pell Rolls, 158), and there, 20th June, he received the
city authorities. On the 2nd October he fled, leaving his son, John of
Eltham, in the Tower, and Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, in charge of the
city. The citizens, as is well known, rose and beheaded the bishop, and
next day, falling in with John de Weston, the constable, they extorted
from him the keys, and entered the fortress. They seem, however, only
to have freed the prisoners, turned out the officials, and appointed
their own men, under the nominal authority of Prince John.
The first years of Edward III.’s reign were spent, perforce, in
the Tower, until he put down Mortimer and assumed the government.
Probably the Beauchamp and Salt Towers, and perhaps the Bowyer, were
his work. In the ninth of his reign, by commission, dated Berwick,
16th October, 1336, he ordered a survey of the defects of the Tower
to be made, and a jury to be empanelled to declare what repairs were
needed. This return was made without delay, and is printed by Bayley.
It mentions the gate towards St. Katherine’s, the steps and passages
upon the wall, a chamber over the Water-gate; “Corande’s” Tower and “Le
Moneye” Tower; the chapel of the Tower; the king and queen’s chapel;
two turrets over the old gate, one called “La Plummerye”; and the quay
opposite the Thames, with the little postern at one end and “Petywales”
at the other. Beauchamp, Bowyer, and most of the other towers are not
named,—probably because some were not then built, and others, the work
of his grandfather, did not need repair. “Le Blanche Tour” seems not
to be the keep, called then “Alta turris.” The other parts named are
numerous, but evidently belonged to the palace ward, now destroyed.
The result of the return was, that the Tower, next year, was put in
order and garrisoned. The Close Roll (10 Edward III.) mentions that,
in 1337, the sheriffs of London were to pay £40 out of the farm of the
city, to be spent on “the great Tower,” then in great need of repair;
and the sheriff of Kent was to bring oak from Havering for the works.
The sheriffs of Surrey and Sussex also had to provide £20 for the same
service.
The Tower was Edward’s chief arsenal. Thither, 1337–8, the sheriffs of
London were to send “5 millia ferri et 200 bordas de Estland [Baltic
planks], ac centum quarter carbonum maritimorum” (sea-coal), for making
anchors for the “Christopher” and “Cogge Edward,” and for certain works
on the Tower. (“Abb. Rot. Orig. II.,” p. 116). Edward was at this
time much engaged in preparing for foreign wars, and it was to the
Tower that he returned suddenly from Tournay, towards midnight, 30th
November, 1340, and punished the constable for negligence. Also between
1340 and 1342 he was much at the Tower, and one of his daughters was
born here. The records also show that the Mint had a considerable share
of the royal attention.
Mr. Hunter has shown (“Arch.,” xxxii., 380) that, as early as 1347,
bills were paid for the manufacture, probably two or three years
earlier, of “pulvis pro ingeniis”; and in 1346, “ad opus ipsius Regis
pro gunnis suis,” 9 cwt. 12 lb. of saltpetre and 886 lb. of quick
sulphur were had; so that gunpowder was then, no doubt, manufactured in
the Tower.
About the same time the Tower received the first of a series of
illustrious foreign prisoners of war. David, King of Scots, taken at
Neville’s Cross, was brought here in January, 1347, and remained here
eleven years; so late as 1357–8, £2. 12s. 9d. being paid for medicines
supplied to him. Later, in the same year with David, came Charles of
Blois, nephew to Philip of France; and still later John de Vienne,
governor of Calais, and the twelve brave burgesses of that town.
Finally, in 1350, here was lodged John, King of France, and the nobles
taken with him, and in the same place of safety the £47,171. 1s. 4d.,
the first instalment of his ransom.
In 24 Edward III., 1350–1, John de Alkeshull had commission to take,
throughout the kingdom, “petram, buscam, carbones, maeremium, plumbum,
vitrum, ferrum, et tegulam”; that is, stone, wood, coal, timber, lead,
glass, iron, and shingle, and all things needful for the king’s works
at Westminster, Windsor, and the Tower. How these materials were
divided is not known. Windsor probably received the chief share of them.
In 1354, the king proposed to alter the constitution of the chapel of
St. Peter ad Vincula at the Tower, and incorporate it as a college,
with a dean and three canons, instead of a rector and chaplains. This,
however, does not seem then to have been effected, as both Richard II.
and Henry IV. nominated a rector to the “Free Chapel of St. Peter.”
The actual incorporation did not come to pass until the last year of
the reign of Edward IV. It was in 1354 proposed that the standards of
weight and measure should be kept at the Tower; and this year the king
ordered the city ditch to be cleansed, and prevented from overflowing
into the Tower ditch. In Stowe’s time the filth was taken off by a
sewer from the City ditch.
Appointments of armourers, bowyers, engineers of the war-slings, &c.,
show that the store of weapons of war continued to be considerable. In
33 Edward III. all the bows, strings, arrows, “hancipes [two-handed
winches] pro balistis tendendis,”[10] in the custody of W. Rotherel, in
the Tower, are ordered to be packed in chests, quivers, butts, pipes,
and barrels, and sent to Sandwich to cross the water with the king. In
1360–2, various sums were spent in repairs of the king’s record-house
in the Tower containing the Chancery Rolls: probably the Wakefield
Tower.
Richard II. fulfilled the usual custom of lodging a short time in
the Tower before his coronation, that he might proceed in state to
that ceremony through the City. Here also he took refuge during Wat
Tyler’s rebellion, after which Arnold Brocas was paid £3. 6s. 8d. for
repairing the door broken open by the common rebels within the Tower.
In 1380–1, a code of regulations was drawn up for the better government
of the place. In 1385–6, cannon were sent hence to Porchester. In 1387,
Richard came here to escape his uncle the Duke of Gloucester, and at
Christmas in that year he was blockaded by the rebel lords, to whom he
gave audience within the fortress.
Two years later, in 1389, it was from the Tower that the king went to
hold a great feast and tournament in London; and here, in 1396, his
new queen, Isabel of France, was lodged before her coronation. Here,
finally, Richard signed his abdication in favour of Henry of Lancaster.
No work at the Tower can positively be attributed to this reign, or the
succeeding one of Henry IV.
It appears from the Issue Roll and the Pell Records of 1 Henry V.,
that breakfast was provided at the Tower at a cost of £2. 16s. 8d. for
Thomas, Earl of Arundel, Henry le Scrop, Lord de Roos, and the Mayor
of London, commissioners for trying traitors. This Lord de Roos was
William, seventh baron, ancestor of a late lieutenant-governor, whose
ancestors on the male side—the Fitzgeralds—also frequently partook of
the hospitality of the Tower, though in the less agreeable capacity of
prisoners.
Henry V. revived the old glories of the prison by sending hither
Charles, Duke of Orleans, taken at Agincourt. An illumination of the
period, given by Lord de Ros, shows the duke to have been lodged in the
state rooms in the White Tower, and shows also the four windows of the
great hall, which adjoined Wakefield Tower on the east.
The strong monarchs employed the Tower as a prison, the weak ones as a
fortress; and under Henry VI. it appears in this latter capacity. In
1460, Lord Scales, the king’s governor, was besieged by the Earl of
Salisbury, Lord Cobham, and Sir John Wenlock. The city men attacked
the west front; Wenlock, from St. Katherine’s; and Cobham, with the
artillery, from the Southwark shore, firing across the river. When
the south ditch was cleared out and levelled in 1842–3, several round
shot of iron and about thirty of Kentish rag stone, from 4½ inches to
10 inches, and in one case 17 inches, diameter, were found, which are
supposed to have fallen there on this occasion.
Edward IV. is reputed to have built a bulwark outside the west
gate by the Lion Tower. In the eleventh of his reign payments were
made for arms and ammunition for the defence and for work upon the
fortifications of the Tower. The workmen were brought from Calais. In
the same year money was allowed for the expenses of Henry VI., then
prisoner in the Tower. Richard III., during his brief reign, pressed
masons and bricklayers to complete certain repairs at the Tower.
Probably the walls and towers were allowed to decay by Henry VII.;
for Henry VIII., in 1532, ordered a survey to be made with a view to
a general repair, which was executed shortly afterwards. The repairs
were very considerable, and the masonry was executed in Caen stone
backed with brick, and, unfortunately, very much of the Tower seems
to have been so faced or cased, and otherwise very seriously altered.
The survey is very minute, and throws light upon much that is now
destroyed. Mention is made of “Burbedge Tower,” on the wall between
Bowyer and Brick Towers, evidently the present Brick Tower, the then
“Brick” being the present Martin Tower. “St. Martin’s” Tower was then
the outer gate, now “Middle” Tower. The present Salt Tower was then
Julius Cæsar’s Tower, and the old Lanthorn Tower was called New Tower.
Wakefield is called “the tower where the king’s records lie,” and
“Bloody” was then Garden Tower. “Byward” was “the Wardyng Gate.” Two
timber bridges, evidently drawbridges, were to be renewed at the west
entrance. The keep was then, as now, the White Tower, distinguished by
its four turrets.
Byward Tower had a narrow escape in 1548. A Frenchman who lodged in
“the round bulwark called the Warden Gate, between the west gate and
the postern, or drawbridge,” blew up the bulwark, and himself, with
gunpowder. It was rebuilt. There was also in the reign of Edward VI.
a drawbridge between Iron and Traitors’ Gate, evidently Cradle Tower.
This was used for the reception of great prisoners, the strong iron
gate (St. Thomas’s) being almost out of use.
The buildings of the palace probably had fallen into decay in the
reign of Elizabeth, by whom, or by James, the Great Hall was removed.
Other buildings followed. Many were destroyed by Cromwell and many by
James II. to make room for a new Ordnance office, and the remains of
the Lanthorn Tower were taken down late in the last century. The White
Tower underwent a final disfigurement at the hands of Sir C. Wren in
1663, who Italianised its openings, cased a part of its exterior,
and rebuilt two of its turrets. Sir Christopher’s work may be traced
throughout the fortress by the Portland stone introduced by him, just
as the work of Henry VIII. is indicated by the use of brickwork and
rough-cast, and the practice of closing the joints of the masonry with
chips and spawls of flint. The ditch was cleansed in 1663, and the quay
refaced.
The Tower, at the commencement of the present century, was an
extraordinary jumble of ancient and later buildings, the towers and
walls being almost completely encrusted by the small official dwellings
by which the area was closely occupied. A great fire in 1841 removed
the unsightly armoury of James II. and William III. on the north of the
inner ward, but the authorities at the time were not ripe for a fire.
The armoury was replaced by a painfully-durable Tudor barrack, and the
repairs and additions were made with little reference to the character
of the fortress. More recently, the general improvement in public taste
has made its way even into the Tower. Mr. Salvin was employed upon it
until his death, and more recently many modern buildings have been
removed, many ancient foundations laid open, and very extensive repairs
and some absolutely necessary restorations have been effected, under
the skilful and very judicious care of Sergeant-Major Andrews.
Thus much of the Tower as an ancient and very curious military
structure, which, throughout the additions, alterations, and
subtractions of eight centuries, still preserves the character of an
early fortress, and very much of original and peculiar work. It may
be that, in some respects, the Tower cannot be compared with others
of the great feudal castles of England. It does not, like Dover and
Bambro’, stand on the edge of a lofty cliff, commanding an equal
expanse of land and water. It has not the solitary grandeur of Corfe,
nor its old associations with the Anglo-Saxon times. It does not, like
Conway, Caernarvon, Beaumaris, and Harlech, bear the impress of one
mind in its design, of one hand in its execution; neither can it boast
the rich surroundings of Ludlow, Warwick, or Kenilworth, nor the proud
pre-eminence of Windsor, the present residence of the sovereign, the
seat of the oldest and most illustrious order of Christian chivalry,
the cynosure of four fair counties, rising amidst a rich mantle of
forest verdure diversified with the silver windings of the Thames, and
the venerable walls and courts of Eton.
The Tower of London can put forth none of these various claims to
our attention, but it is not the less the most interesting fortress
in Britain. It is the work of the great Norman conqueror of England,
founded by the founder of her monarchy. It is the citadel of the
metropolis of Britain, and was long the most secure residence of her
greatest race of kings. Here they deposited the treasure of the empire
and the jewels and regalia of their crown. Here they secured the
persons of their prisoners, and minted and stored up their coin. Here
the courts of law and of exchequer were not unfrequently held; here
the most valuable records were preserved; and here were fabricated
and preserved long-bow and cross-bow, sword, lance, and pike, armour
of proof, balistæ, scorpions, and catapults, then the artillery and
munitions of feudal war. Here, too, as these older machines were laid
aside, was first manufactured that “subtle grain,” that “pulvis ad
faciendum le crak,” and these “gonnys and bombards of war,” which were
to revolutionise the military art, until they themselves should be
superseded by later inventions, of which the ancient keep is still the
grand storehouse and armoury of the country.
But the Tower has memories surpassing even its associations with
the military glories of the state. It has been the prison and the
scaffold of not a few of the best and bravest of English blood. Percy
and Mortimer, Hastings and Clinton, Neville and Beauchamp, Arundel,
Devereux, Stafford, and Howard,—those “old stocks who so long withstood
the waves and weathers of time,”—have here found a grave. Here the
great house of Plantagenet flourished and was cut down. Here England’s
Elizabeth learned the uses of adversity; and here Raleigh solaced his
confinement with the composition of that History which has made his
name great in letters as in naval enterprise.
Here, too, captive within these walls, and through these gates led
to death, were More and Fisher, martyrs for the ancient, and Anne
Askew for the purer, faith; Lady Jane Grey, the most innocent and
accomplished of victims; Strafford and Laud, firm for the old tyranny;
Sir John Elliot, who died broken-hearted in the prison for the new
liberty.
No other fortress, no bastile in France, no bargello in Italy, no
prison-castle in Spain or Germany, is so deeply associated with the
history of its nation, or with the progress of civil and religious liberty.
-shaped, and had communications right and left through the
arms of the 
