Queen's Gate

“ As the wealth of the Orient flows into the Golden Horn, the harbour of Constantinople for many centuries, so the riches of commerce, the products of great states west of the Rocky Mountains, and the treasures of the Pacific, pass through the Golden Gate. The Golden Gate too is about five miles in length, although at its entrance it is a little over a mile wide and widens out as you sail into the great Bay of which it is the outlet. ”

“ Early in the morning, a deputation of some of the highest officers of the government, with a train of attendants, came to Essex's palace, and demanded entrance in the name of the queen. The gates of the palace were shut and guarded. At last, after some hesitation and delay, the conspirators opened a wicket, that is, a small gate within the large one, which would admit one person at a time. They allowed the officers themselves to enter, but shut the gate immediately [Pg 252] so as to exclude the attendants. ”

“ Of many of the greater names of Elizabeth’s reign, Tower annals bear no record, but soldier, statesman, or ecclesiastic, having crossed the Queen’s humour, found it but a step from Court favour to Traitor’s Gate.
“In the grey hours of morning, March 24, 1603,{69} watch and ward was kept in London streets; and in all the neighbour counties men who had much at stake in time of crisis wove uncertain plans to meet the thousand chances that day might bring.... ”

“ A crowd of river-craft are generally moored in front of it; but if we look sharply at the right moment under the base of the rampart, we may catch a glimpse of an arched water-entrance, half submerged, past which the Thames glides as indifferently as if it were the mouth of a city-kennel. Nevertheless, it is the Traitor's Gate, a dreary kind of triumphal passage-way (now supposed to be shut up and barred forever) , through which a multitude of noble and illustrious personages have entered the Tower and found it a brief resting-place on their way to heaven. ”

“ Each of these gates is defended by an additional work. A sort of hornwork is thrown out in advance, enclosed within a wall with towers, and with a second gate placed obliquely to the first, to allow the approach to be commanded. The north, called the King’s Gate, is tolerably perfect. The southern outwork is nearly destroyed. It had two gates, one to the south, connected with which was the tower containing a well, and one to the east, called King Arthur’s Gate, close to which was the Armourer’s Tower, and near this was Earl Godwin’s Postern. ”

“ Proceeding to the details of the Print, we may observe that in our eleventh volume we gave three engravings illustrative of the Castle improvements; one of which represented the gateway named after the late Sovereign, and seen from the Long Walk. The present Engraving is the other side of the gateway, as seen from the interior of the square or quadrangle. This new gate was externally completed in 1826. The natural application of the fine avenue, called the Long Walk, was thus realized. The gateway consists of two towers the York and Lancaster. ”

“ Having now made a general circuit of the fortress, we shall return to the inner ballium, which is approached on the south by a noble gateway, erected in the reign of Edward the Third. A fine specimen of the architecture of the fourteenth century, this portal is vaulted with groined arches adorned with exquisite tracery springing from grotesque heads. At the period of this chronicle, it was defended at each end by a massive gate clamped with iron, and a strong portcullis. The gate and portcullis at the southern extremity still exist, but those at the north have been removed. ”

“ Driving along a flat and monotonous country road, one comes on the old gate almost suddenly, and experiences a feeling, not of disappointment but of surprise. The gate does not span the road, but is set back a little in a hedge on one side of it, and seems large for its setting. One is prepared for a dark, grimy portal, whereas the soot and smoke of London have been erased from it, and, instead, one sees an antique, creamy-white structure tinted and toned with the green of the great trees which overhang it. ”

“ Slopping along in a cab through the muddy streets, as I went under the (p. 187) portico of Euston Station I was forcefully reminded of one of the big gates of Pekin. There is a suggestion of the same massiveness; but the massiveness is only make-face, like the painted cannon on a Chinese city gate. It was an imposing portico to a shamble of sheds.
The railway terminus is the real gate of the modern city.
Yet what absurdly incongruous things these London city gates are—a salad jumble of architecture and machinery with a mayonnaise of train-oil and soot! ”

“ Drawing nearer, we could hear the rattle and the clank of the heavy chains of the drawbridge as it was being lowered, and the creaking of the ponderous gate as it swung inwards on its heavy hinges. The flames of torches blazing from the wide doorway of the main tower flashed upon the steel jacks and the gauntlets of English soldiers, dim-flitting in the half-gloom of the opening mouth of the gate. ”

“ Long ago Sir William Chambers, the architect of Somerset House, after remarking how in Italy and France the gates of palaces are always of open ironwork, so as to allow the house within to be seen, added this pleasant criticism:—
“In London many of our noblemen’s palaces towards the street look like convents; nothing appears but a high wall, with one or two large gates, in which there is a hole for those who choose to go in or out, to creep through: if a coach arrives the wide gate is opened indeed, but this is an operation that requires time. ”

“ The courtyard in which they were standing was located in the center of the great palace, which surrounded it on all sides. But in one place a passage led to an outer gateway, which the Soldier had barred by order of his sovereign. It was through this gateway his Majesty proposed to escape, and the Royal Army now led the Saw-Horse along the passage and unbarred the gate, which swung backward with a loud crash.
"Now," said Tip to the horse, "you must save us all. Run as fast as you can for the gate of the City, and don't let anything stop you." ”

“ Standing inside the enclosure we look up at the Golden Gate—the stones and brick that block up the three arches fade away, and in their place stand the gleaming gates that helped to give it its name. A surging mass of people moves excitedly around us pressing forward towards the entrance. A body of troops appears: big men, of fairer skins than those who form the crowd, clear with long-handled spears a roadway, thrusting aside with undisguised contempt the over-curious spectators. ”

“ An Edwardian gatehouse is a very imposing structure. It was usually rectangular in plan, always flanked in front by two drum towers, and sometimes in the rear by two others containing well-staircases. In its centre was the portal arch opening into a long straight passage traversing the building. Three loops in each flanking tower commanded the bridge of approach, raked the lateral curtain, and covered a point immediately outside the gate. ”

“ The Outer Ward.—The gatehouse has been much altered and mutilated. In front it presents the appearance of a gateway, with a low-pointed arch, in a curtain about 6 feet thick and 35 feet high, of which the merlons are pierced by plain loops. On each side the gate is a flanking wall, 3 feet thick, and projecting 8 feet, which, no doubt, covered the drawbridge. The arch looks Decorated, as is probably the curtain, though the battlements are probably modern. The ditch has been filled up, and large trees grow along its course. ”

“ Human remains, various ancient implements, and coins were turned up below its foundation. A filthy court ran from it along the bank of the stream. I have seen a memorandum of agreement by which a house next door to the White Hart was let in 1694 for five pounds per annum.
Princes Gate.—Two terraces are so called, very absurdly. [163] The real gate is an entrance to the Park opposite, named after the Prince of Wales, and opened in October, 1848. It stands on the highest plot of ground between Hyde Park Corner and Windsor Castle. ”

“ In each of the four yellow outer walls is a richly roofed and gabled gate-way, as stately as a temple, the ends of the beams, the ridges, and eaves decorated with golden chrysanthemum crests. The great gate, opened only for the Emperor and his train, and through whose central passage only the sacred being himself may be borne, faces south, as does the throne, in accordance with the old superstitions of the East. The evil influences always threatening from the north-east are guarded against by many temples beyond that side of the palace. ”

“ There is here to be found none of the splendour of Elizabethan building. A different impression, however, is in store when once the wicket-gate has been opened. You are in a courtyard of a size the frontage had never led you to expect, and the vista through a second gateway shows you the columns of a second court; your eye is caught by an oriel window opposite, and by other windows with heraldic bearings in their panes, promise of rooms and galleries; by gables and the heraldic leopards; by the clock tower which gives an oddly Chinese effect immediately above the Tudor oriel. ”

“ Lilias walked by the side of her husband, enchanted by this display of his strength, while Xit strutted in front, as if the giants were under his command.
State offenders, as is well known, were formerly brought into the Tower through a gloomy archway, spanning a sluice from the river—the sluice being protected by a ponderous wooden gate, constructed of huge beams of wood, worked by machinery in the superstructure. This massive portal was popularly known as “Traitors’ Gate.” ”

“ These buildings form the circuit of the court, and complete the edifice; for the side next the mountain, or that by which we entered, had little besides the ends of the two lateral buildings and the gate. The latter was merely a sort of chivalrous back-door, for there was another between the old tower and the building of the knight's hall, of more pretension, and which was much larger. The great gate opens on a small elevated terrace, that is beautifully shaded by fine trees, and which commands a view, second, I feel persuaded, to but few on earth. ”

“ This gatehouse is placed in the middle of the curtain which covers the very narrow south-east front of the town. On each side of the gate-towers is a curtain of about 100 feet long, and beyond this a pair of drum mural towers, of half projection. The loops of these towers, like every detail in Coucy, are on a grand scale. Though mere slots, they are 10 feet high, and in three tiers. In front of the wall is a fosse of unusual breadth, wholly artificial, and which, like that of the castle, is dug across the peninsula, from one lateral valley to the other. ”

“ The grand triple gateway of the Royal Palace with its double roof, the old audience hall in the Mulberry Gardens, and the decorative roofs of the gate towers, are all seen in an hour. There remains the Marble Pagoda, seven centuries old, so completely hidden away in the back-yard of a house in one of the foulest and narrowest alleys of the city, that many people never see it at all. ”

“ Word flew round that 'the foreign troops are at the city wall and are shelling the East Gate.' At daylight most of us went on to the wall, and witnessed the shelling of the Great East Gate. We knew that the allies would advance in separate columns, and were on the qui vive of excitement, knowing that at any moment now the troops might arrive. Luncheon, the hard luncheon of horse flesh, came on, and we had just finished when the cry rang through the Legation, 'The British are coming,' and there was a rush to the entrance and up Canal-street towards the Water Gate. ”

“ It was a Roman custom to erect gates at one end, or in the centre of their bridges—not triumphal arches, but twin gates, such as they built to their walled towns, and such as stood at the end of the bridge at Saintes, when it was altered by Isembert. Such gates as survived in mediæval times were generally fortified, and formed the model for imitation by mediæval builders; and such a gate was erected at the Southwark end of London, which, under its name of Bridge Gate, became one of the principal gates of the city. ”

“ This hill, which romantic native writers love to compare to a granada, or pomegranate, thence deriving the name of their favorite city, is half a mile long by eight hundred feet wide, and is entirely surrounded by walls. Traversing a grove of elms that covers the slope nearest the Genil, we reach the Gate of Justice, a massive tower forming the entrance to the fortress. The seat of the kadi, or civil magistrate, who here settled all disputes not deemed important enough to be carried before the sultan, the Gate of Justice was regarded with peculiar veneration by the Moors. ”

“ But the castles of the keepless kind are not invariably concentric; those built by Edward I. at Conway, Carnarvon, and Flint are not so. [1198] Instead of a dark and comfortless keep, the royal or noble owner is provided in this type of castle with a palatial house. In England this house is frequently attached to the gateway, forming what we may call a gatehouse palace; good examples may be seen at Beaumaris, Harlech, and Tonbridge. [1199] The gate [Pg 376] way itself is always defended by a pair of massive towers. ”