Her Majesty's Tower ... Third edition

Preface

Twenty years ago I wrote some chapters on the Tower — especially on the human interests which cling around it ; and since that time I have noted, with care, such passages in either the State Papers or printed books as threw light into the cells once occupied by the heroes and heroines of English story. This volume — a book of identifi cations — is the fruit of this long-continued search. In the labour of reading and deciphering the State Papers, for the purposes of this work, I stand indebted to Her Majesty's Deputy-keeper of the Records, Mr. T. Duffus Hardy, to an extent which no words of mine can adequately express. 6 St. James's Terrace, New Years Day, 1869. NOTE TO THIRD EDITION. Many small faults, which escaped the printer and proof-reader, have been removed from the text. The only changes introduced are, the sub stitution of 'St. Giles's Field' for < Smithfield ' (p. 99), and ' Blackfriars ' for 'Sion' (p. 297).

February 8th. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAOE I. THE PILE ....... 1 II. INNER WARD AND OUTER WARD . . . 11 III. THE WHARF . . . . . . 18 IV. RIVER RIGHTS 31 V, THE WHITE TOWER 38 VI. CHARLES OF ORLEANS . . . . . 51 VII. UNCLE GLOUCESTER ..... 58 VIII. PRISON RULES ...... 70 IX. BEAUCHAMP TOWER ..... 79 X. THE GOOD LORD COBHAM .... 87 XI. KING AND CARDINAL . . . . .103 XII. THE TILGRIMAGE OF GRACE . . . .112 XIII. MADGE CHEYNE 129 XIV. HEIRS TO THE CROWN 146 XV. THE NINE DAYS QUEEN . . . .159 > XVI. DETHRONED . . . . . .178 XVH. THE MEN OF KENT 192 XVIII. COURTNEY X CONTENTS. CHAP. rAGE XIX. NO CROSS, NO CROWN . . . • . 217 XX. CRANMER, LATIMER, RTDLEY" . . .228 XXI. WHITE ROSES . . . . .234 XXII. PRINCESS MARGARET . . . . 245 XXIII. PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT . . . ?61 XXIV. MONSIEUR CHARLES ..... 273 XXV.

BISHOP OF ROSS ...... 286 XXVI. MURDER OF NORTHUMBERLAND . . . 296 XXVII. PHILIP THE CONFESSOR . . . .305 XXVIII. MASS IN THE TOWER . . .. . .319 XXIX. SIR WALTER RALEIGH ..... 334 XXX. THE ARABELLA PLOT ..... 347 xxxi. raleigh's walk 359 XXXII. THE VILLAIN WAAD ..... 367 XXXIII. THE GARDEN HOUSE ..... 374 XXXIV. THE BRICK TOWER . . . . .382 INDEX ....... fntur Ward. A White tower. B Wardrobe tower. C Cold Harbour. D St. Peter's Church. E Block on Tower Green. F Officer's house. G Lieutenant's house. H The Garden. I Queen's apartments. K Queen's garden. I. Gunners' quarters. On the Wall. a Beauchamp tow h Prisoners' walk c Belfry. d Raleigh's walk e Bloody tower. s Lantern g Salt tower. h Broad Arrow tower. in tower I Northumberland's walk. ;n Brick tower. 11 Bowyer towei ■ o .lint tower. |i 1 leve-lin tower Outer Ward. i Post 2 Middle I" 3 Byewaid lower. t; llall to'. 6 Great hall. 7 A''"'- S Inulor's gate. 9 St. Thomas' to io Cradle I 1 1 Wdl tov 12 Galleyman tower. 13 Iron 14 lirass mount. 1 c, 1 .'"Kl-i1- '*■ * 16 Soldiers' quart VIEW 01 HER \1 AIKS1. - TOWER IN THE REIGN OF r.LIZABl HER MAJESTY'S TOWER.

CHAPTEE I. THE PILE. Half-a-mile below London Bridge, on ground which was once a bluff, commanding the Thames from St. Saviour's Creek to St. Olave's Wharf, stands the Tower ; a mass of ramparts, walls, and gates, the most ancient and most poetic pile in Europe. Seen from the hill outside, the Tower appears to be white with age and wrinkled by remorse. The home of our stoutest kings, the grave of our noblest knights, the scene of our gayest revels, the field of our darkest crimes, that edifice speaks at once to the eye and to the soul. Grey keep, green tree, black gate, and frowning battle ment, stand out, apart from all objects far and u HER MAJESTY'S TOWEB. 2 near them, menacing, picturesque, enchaining; working on the senses like a spell; and calling us away from our daily mood into a world of romance, like that which we find painted in light and shadow on Shakspeare's page.

Looking at the Tower as either a prison, a palace, or a court, picture, poetry, and drama crowd upon the mind ; and if the fancy dwells most frequently on the state prison, this is because the soul is more readily kindled by a human interest than fired by an archaic and official fact. For one man who would care to see the room in which a council met or a court was held, a hundred men would like to see the chamber in which Lady Jane Grey was lodged, the cell in which Sir Walter Raleigh wrote, the tower from which Sir John Oldcastle escaped. Who would not like to stand for a moment by those steps on which Ann Boleyn knelt ; pause by that slit in the wall through which Arthur De la Pole gazed ; and linger, if he could, in that room in which Cran mer, Latimer, and Ridley searched the New Testament together ?

The Tower has an attraction for us akin to that of the house in which we were be the school in which we were trained. Go where we may, that grim old edifice on the Pool goes with us ; a part of all we know, and of all we are. Put seas between us and the Thames, this Tower will cling to us, like a thing of life. It colours Shakspeare's page. It casts a momentary gloom over Bacon's story. Many of our books were written in its vaults ; the Duke of Orleans' ' Poesies,' Raleigh's ' Historie of the World,' Eliot's ' Monarchy of Man,' and Penn's ' No Cross, no Crown.' Even as to length of days, the Tower has no rival among palaces and prisons ; its origin, like that of the Iliad, that of the Sphinx, that of the Newton Stone, being lost in the nebulous ages, long before our definite history took shape.

Old writers date it from the days of Cæsar ; a legend taken up by Shakspeare and the poets, in favour of which the name of Cæsar's tower remains in popular use to this very day. A Roman wall can even yet be traced near some parts of the ditch. The Tower is mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle, in a way not incompatible with the fact of a Saxon stronghold having stood upon this spot. The buildings as we have them now in block and plan were commenced by William the Conqueror ; and the series of apartments in Cæsar's tower, — hall, gallery, council-chamber, chapel,— were built in the early Norman reigns, and used as a royal residence by all our Norman kings. What can Europe show to compare against such a tale ? Set against the Tower of London — with its eight hundred years of historic life, its nineteen hundred years of traditional fame — all other palaces and prisons appear like things of an hour.

The oldest bit of palace in Europe, that of the west front of the Burg in Vienna, is of the time of Henry the Third. The Kremlin in Moscow, the Doge's Palazzo in Venice, are of the fourteenth century. The Seraglio in Stamboul was built by Mohammed the Second. The oldest part of the Vatican was commenced by Borgia, whose name it bears. The old Louvre was commenced in the reign of Henry the Eighth ; the Tuileries in that of Elizabeth. In the time of our Civil War Versailles was yet a swamp. Sans Souci and the Escorial belong to the eighteenth century. The Serail of Jerusalem is a Turkish edifice. The palaces of Athens, of Cairo, of Tehran, are all of modern date. Neither can the prisons which remain in fact as well as in history and drama — with the one exception of St. Angelo in Rome — compare against the Tower.

The Bastile is gone ; the Bargello has become a museum ; the Piombi are removed from the Doge's roof. Vincennes, Spandau, Spilberg, Magdeburg, are all modern in comparison with a jail from which Ralph Flambard escaped so long ago as the year 1100, the date of the First Crusade. Standing on Tower Hill, looking down on the dark lines of wall — picking out keep and turret, bastion and ballium, chapel and belfry — the jewel house, the armoury, the mounts, the casemates, the open leads — the Bye-ward gate, the Belfry, the Bloody tower — the whole edifice seems alive with story ; the story of a nation's highest splen dour, its deepest misery, and its darkest shame. The soil beneath your feet is richer in blood than many a great battle-field ; for out upon this sod has been poured, from generation to generation, a stream of the noblest life in our land.

Should you have come to this spot alone, in the early day, when the Tower is noisy with martial doings, you may haply catch, in the hum which rises from the ditch and issues from the wall below you — broken by roll of drum, by blast of bugle, by tramp of soldiers — some echoes, as it were, of a far-off time ; some hints of a May day revel ; of a state execution ; of a royal entry. You may catch some sound which recalls the thrum of a queen's virginal, the cry of a victim on the rack, the laughter of a bridal feast. For all these sights and sounds — the dance of love and the dance of death — are part of that gay and tragic memory which clings around the Tower. From the reign of Stephen down to that of Henry of Richmond, Cæsar's tower (the great Norman keep, now called the White tower) was a main part of the royal palace ; and for that large interval of time, the story of the White tower is in some sort that of our English society as well as of our English kings.

Here were kept the royal wardrobe and the royal jewels; and hither came with their goodly wares, the tiremen, the goldsmiths, the chasers and em broiderers, from Flanders, Italy, and Almaigne. Close by were the Mint, the lions' dens, the old archery-grounds, the Court of King's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, the Queen's gardens, the royal banqueting-hall; so that art and trade, science and manners, literature and law, sport and politics, find themselves equally at home. Two great architects designed the main parts of the Tower : Gundulf the Weeper and Henry the Builder ; one a poor Norman monk, the other a great English king. Gundulf, a Benedictine friar, had, for that age, seen a great deal of the world ; for he had not only lived in Rouen and Caen, but had travelled in the East. Familiar with the glories of Saracenic art, no less than with the Norman simplicities of Bee, St. Ouen, and St. Etienne ; a pupil of Lanfranc, a friend of Anselm ; he had been employed in the monastery of Bee to marshal, with the eye of an artist, all the pictorial ceremonies of his church.

But he was chiefly known in that convent as a weeper. No monk at Bee could cry so often and so much as Gundulf. He could weep with those who wept ; nay, he could weep with those who sported ; for his tears welled forth from what seemed to be an unfailing source. As the price of his exile from Bee, Gundulf received the crozier of Rochester, in which city he rebuilt the cathedral, and perhaps designed the castle, since the great keep on the Medway has a sister's likeness to the great keep on the Thames. His works in London were — the White tower, the first St. Peter's church, and the old barbican, afterwards known as the Hall tower, and now used as the Jewel house. The cost of these works was great ; the dis content caused by them was sore. Ralph, Bishop of Durham, the able and rapacious minister who had to raise the money, was hated and reviled by the Commons with peculiar bitterness of heart and phrase.

He was called Flambard, or Fire brand. He was represented as a devouring Hon. Still the great edifice grew up ; and Gundulf, who lived to the age of fourscore, saw his great keep completed from basement to battlement. Henry the Third, a prince of epical fancies, as Corffe, Conway, Beaumaris, and many other fine poems in stone attest, not only spent much of his time in the Tower, but much of his money in adding to its strength and beauty. Adam de Lamburn was his master mason ; but Henry was his own chief clerk of the works. The Water gate, the embanked wharf, the Cradle tower, the Lantern, which he made his bedroom and private closet, the Galleyman tower, and the first wall, appear to have been his gifts. But the prince who did so much for Westminster Abbey, not content with giving stone and piles to the home in which he dwelt, enriched the chambers with frescoes and sculpture, the chapels with carving and glass ; making St. John's chapel in the White tower splendid with saints, St. Peter's church on the Tower Green musical with bells.

In the Hall tower, from which a passage led through the Great hall into the King's bedroom in the Lantern, he built a tiny chapel for his private use — a chapel which served for the devotion of his successors until Henry the Sixth was stabbed to death before the cross. Sparing neither skill nor gold to make the great fortress worthy of his art, he sent to Purbeck for marble, and to Caen for stone. The dabs of lime, the spawls of flint, the layers of brick, which deface the walls and towers in too many places, are of either earlier or later times. The marble shafts, the noble groins, the delicate traceries, are Henry's work. Traitor's gate, one of the noblest arches in the world, was built by him ; in short, nearly all that is purest in art is traceable to his reign. Edward the First may be added, at a distance, to the list of builders.

In his reign the original church of St. Peter fell into ruin ; the wrecks were carted away, and the present edifice was built. The bill of costs for clearing the ground is still extant in Fetter Lane. Twelve men, who were paid twopence a-day wages, were employed on the work for twenty days. The cost of pulling down the old chapel was forty-six shillings and eight pence ; that of digging foundations for the new chapel forty shillings. That chapel has suffered from wardens and lieutenants ; yet the shell is of very fine Norman work. From the days of Henry the Builder down to those of Henry of Richmond, the Tower, as the strongest place in the south of England, was by turns the magnificent home and the miserable jail of all our princes. Here Richard the Second held his court, and gave up his crown.

Here Henry the Sixth was murdered. Here the Duke of Clarence was drowned in wine. Here King Edward and the Duke of York were slain by command of Richard. Here Margaret of Salisbury suffered her tragic fate. Henry of Richmond kept his royal state in the Tower, receiving his ambassadors, counting his angels, making presents to his bride, Elizabeth of York. Among other gifts to that lady on her nuptial day was a Royal Book of verse, composed by a prisoner in the keep.

Chapter II. Inner Ward And Outer Ward

The Tower was divided into two main parts ; an Inner Ward and an Outer Ward ; the first part being bounded by the old wall, crowned by twelve mural towers ; the second part being bounded by the soil which fringed the slopes leading down into the ditch. A man who would read aright the many curious passages in our history of which the State Prison is the scene, must bear this fact of the two wards constantly in his mind. The Inner Ward, planned and partly built by the Monk of Bee, was the original fortress ; of which the defending ditch lay under the ballium wall It contained the keep, the royal gal leries and rooms, the Mint, the Jewel house, the Wardrobe, the Queen's garden, St. Peter's Church, the open green, the Constable's tower, the Brick tower, in which the Master of the Ordnance lived, the Great hall, quarters for the archers and bowmen, and, in later days, the Lieutenant's house.

This ward was flanked and covered by twelve strong works, built on the wall, and forming part of it ; the Beauchamp tower, the Belfry, the Garden tower (now famous as the Bloody tower), the Hall tower, the Lantern, the Salt tower, the Broad Arrow tower, the Constable tower, the Martin tower, the Brick tower, the Flint tower, the Bowyer tower, and the Develin tower ; all of which may be considered, more or less, as defensive works ; even the Lantern, which had a vault for prisoners on the ground, a royal bed-chamber on the main floor, a guard-room for archers and slingers in the upper story, and a round turret over these for the burning lights. Only one gateway pierced the wall ; a narrow and embattled outlet near the Water gate, passing under the strong block house, now the Bloody tower, into Water Lane.

The road springs up ward by the main guard ; a rise of one in ten ; so as to give the men inside a vast advantage iu a push of pikes. This Inner Ward was the royal quarter. The Outer Ward, which owed its plan and most of its execution to Henry the Third, lay between the ballium and the outer scarp of INNER WARD AND OUTER WARD. 13 the ditch, with a protected passage into the Thames. It contained some lanes and streets below the wall, and works which overlooked the wharf. In this ward stood the Middle tower, the Bye-ward tower, the Water gate, the Cradle tower, the Well tower, the Galleyman tower, the Iron Gate tower, Brass Mount, Legge Mount, and the covered ways. Into it opened the Hall tower, afterwards called the Record tower, now known as the Jewel house. Close by the Hall tower stood the Great Hall, the doors of which opened into this outer court.

Spanning the ditch, towards the Thames, stood the Water gate, a fine structure, built by Henry the Builder, which folk called St. Thomas's tower, after our Saxon saint. Under this building sprang the wide arch, through which the tides flowed in and out from the river and the ditch ; the water-way known as Traitor's gate. This Outer Ward was the folk's quarter. To the Inner Ward, common folk had no right of access, and they were rarely allowed to enjoy as a privilege that which they could not claim as a right. This Inner Ward was the King's castle, his palace, his garrison, his ward robe, his treasury. Here, under charge of a trusty officer, he kept the royal jewels, secreted from every eye, except on a coronation day. Here rose his keep, with the dungeons in which he could chain his foes. Here stood his private chapel, and not far from it his private block.

No man ever dreamt of contesting the King's right to do what he pleased in this quarter ; and thus, an execution within these lines was regarded by the world outside as little better than a private murder. Into the Outer Ward, the Commons had always claimed a right of entry, and something more than a right of entry ; that is to say, free access, guarded by possession of the outer gates and towers. This right of entry was enforced on stated occasions, with an observance which is highly comic. Baron and citizen — that is to say, alder man and commoner — met in Barking Church, on Tower Hill, whence they sent six sage men of their body into the Tower to ask leave for a deputation of citizens to see the king, and free access for all people to the courts of law. These six sage persons were to beg that the king, according to custom, would forbid his guards either to close the gates or to keep watch over them, INNER WARD AND OUTER WARD. while the citizens were coming and going ; it being wrong in itself and against their freedom, they alleged, for any one to keep guard over the gates and doors of the Tower, save such of their own people as they should appoint to that duty.

On this request being granted by the king, the six messengers would return to their fellows in Barking Church, report what they had done, and send the citizen guard to their posts. Then would the Commons elect from their body three men of mature age, moderate opinions, and cautious speech, to act as presenters. The rules by which they acted were rather strict. The sheriffs and beadles were to be decently clothed and shod, since it was laid down that no man should come before the king either in dirty rags or without his shoes. Their followers were to be trim and spruce ; their capes and cloaks laid aside ; their coats and overcoats put on. No man was to go with them into the presence who had sore eyes ; no man was to join them who had weak legs. Mayor, alderman, sheriff, cryer, every one going into the Tower on public duty, was to have his hair cut short and his face newly shaved.

The object of these rules was to guard the right of access to the courts of justice ; the Court of King's Bench, and the Court of Common Pleas. Where were these courts of justice held ? No writer on the Tower has sought to find the true localities of these great tribunals. Yet the sites are clearly enough described in our ancient writs, hundreds of which may be found in Fetter Lane. One court stood in the royal quarter, another court stood in the folk's quarter. The King's Bench was held in a room which the writs describe as the Lesser Hall, lying under the east turret of the keep. The Common Pleas were held in a place which the writs describe as the Great hall by the river ; a hall now gone, but of which the identification is quite as sure. It stood by the Hall tower, to which it lent a name, and into which it led.

A view of the Tower in the Royal Book of verse shows that this Great Hall was a Gothic edifice, in the style of Henry the Third. Many a dark scene in the history of our public liberties and our private manners grows suddenly luminous when we bear these facts in mind ; that the Tower consisted of two parts — an inner court and an outer court; that the Court of King's Bench was held in the royal INNER WARD AND OUTER WARD. 17 quarter, the Court of Common Pleas in the folk's quarter ; that the people had free access to the outer court, and only to the outer court. The Hall tower, in which Henry the Third had built a chapel for his private use, being an outer work, with doors and windows opening on the rampart and Water Lane, could not be used as a prison for men of a dangerous class. A feeble prince, like Henry the Sixth, who shrank from state and power, may have enjoyed a mild detention in the hall now sparkling with the crown jewels ; for he was softly kept ; and this tower was in his day a part of the royal palace.

Old traditions make this room his cage ; the scene of his pious meditations ; and of his deliberate murder by the Duke of Gloucester. After Henry's death, if not before, this tower was used as a paper office ; for which purpose, as a hall adjoining the Court of Common Pleas, and opening into the folk's quarter, it was well adapted Hence it came to be known as the Record tower. On the wall above Water Lane, stood the two signal towers, the Belfry and the Lantern ; each surmounted by a turret ; of use to vessels coming up the Thames. On the first swung a bell ; on the second burned a light. c

Chapter III. The Wharf

Turning through a sally-port in the Bye-ward gate, you cross the south arm of the ditch, and come out on the Wharf; a strip of strand in front of the fortress, won from the river, and kept in its place by masonry and piles. This wharf, the work of Henry the Builder, is one of the wonders of his reign ; for the whole strip of earth had to be seized from the Thames, and covered from the daily ravage of its tides. At this bend of the river the scour is hard, the roll enormous. Piles had to be driven into the mud and silt ; rubble had to be thrown in between these piles ; and then the whole mass united with fronts and bars of stone. All Adam de Lamburn's skill was taxed to resist the weight of water, yet keep the sluices open by which. he fed the ditch. Most of all was this the case when the King began to build a new barbican athwart the sluice.

This work, of which the proper name was for many ages the Water gate, com mands the only outlet from the Tower into the Thames ; spanning the ditch and sweeping the wharf, both to the left and right. So soon as the wharf was taken from the river-bed, this work became essential to the defensive line. London folk felt none of the King's pride in the construction of this great wharf and bar bican. In fact, these works were in the last degree unpopular, and on news of any mishap occurring to them the Commons went almost mad with joy. Once they sent to the King a formal complaint against these works. Henry assured his people that the wharf and Water gate would not harm their city. Still the citizens felt sore. Then, on St. George's night (1240), while the people were at prayer, the Water gate and wall fell down, no man knew why.

No doubt the tides were high that spring, and the soft silt of the river gave way beneath the wash. Anyhow they fell Henry, too great a builder to despair, began again ; this time with a better plan ; yet on the self-same night of the ensuing year his barbican crashed down into the river, one mass of stones. A monk of St. Alban's, who tells the tale, asserts that a priest who was passing near the fortress saw the spirit of an archbishop, dressed in his robes, holding a cross, and attended by the spirit of a clerk, gazing sternly on these new works. As the priest came up, the figure spake to the masons, ' Why build ye these ? ' As he spake, he struck the walls sharply with the holy cross, on which they reeled and sank into the river, leaving a wreath of smoke behind. The priest was too much scared to accost the more potent spirit ; but he turned to the humble clerk, and asked him the Archbishop's name. ' St. Thomas the Martyr,' said the shade.

The priest, growing bolder, asked him why the Martyr had done this deed ? ' St. Thomas,' said the spirit, ' by birth a citizen, mis likes these works, because they are raised in scorn, and against the public right. For this cause he has thrown them down beyond the tyrant's power to restore them.' But the shade was not strong enough to scare the King. Twelve thousand marks had been spent on that heap of ruins ; yet the barbican being necessary to his wharf, the builder, on the morrow of his second mishap, was again at work, clearing away the rubbish, driving in the piles, and laying in a deeper bed the foundation stones. This time his work was done so well that the walls of his gateway have never shrunk, and are as firm to-day as the earth on which they stand. The ghost informed the priest that the two most popular saints in our calendar, the Confessor and the Martyr, had undertaken to make war upon these walls. ' Had they been built,' said the shade, ' for the defence of London, and in order to find food for masons and joiners, they might have been borne ; but they are built against the poor citizens ; and if St. Thomas had not destroyed them, the Confessor would have swept them away.' The names of these popular saints still cling to the Water gate.

One of the rooms, fitted up as an oratory, and having a piscina still perfect, is called the Confessor's Chapel ; and the barbican itself, instead of bearing its official name of Water gate, is only known as St. Thomas's tower. The whole wharf, twelve hundred feet in length, lay open to the Thames, except a patch of ground at the lower end, near the Iron gate, leading towards the hospital of St. Catharine the Virgin, where a few sheds and magazines were budt at an early date. Except these sheds, the wharf was clear. When cannon came into use, they were laid along the ground, as well as trained on the walls and the mural towers. Three accents marked, as it were, the river front — the Queen's stair, the Water way, and the Galleyman stair. The Queen's stair, the land ing-place of royal princes, and of such great persons as came to the Tower on state affairs, lay beneath the Bye-ward gate and the Belfry, having a passage into the fortress by a bridge and postern, through the Bye-ward tower into Water Lane.