Tower Hill

“ As one descends Tower Hill, the eye takes in the whole immense and hoary mass, fit emblem of the stormy and tempestuous times in which each separate tower arose. Like black shadows of the past casting their gloom over the present, rise the lofty turrets above the roofs of modern buildings. ”

“ Above the Byward Gate on Tower Hill that flag still flies; the gold is so faded that only one who knows can trace the marks which once made so clear the insignia of a lieutenant, the white field is bleached and patched where furious winds have torn it. It is the first thing men look to in the morning and the last thing men see when the sky fades out and the clear, sad notes of retreat are sounded by the British bugler on Tower Hill. ”

“ It was a miserable morning; the noisy thoroughfares full of mist and wet and mud; drifts of sleet swooping round corners; the air raw and cold. The river was scarcely visible when he crossed London Bridge; the steamers and ships were like ghosts in the fog. He made his way as quickly as he could through the crowded streets, until he reached Tower Hill; then he passed up into the Minories; there he paused in front of one or two shops, in the windows of which were the most miscellaneous objects—old clothes, waterproof leggings, tin cans, and what not. ”

“ As I look from my window day by day across Tower Hill at the noble old buildings lying beyond, and watch them when silhouetted against a morning sky or lit up by the glow of evening sunshine, I often wonder if justice can ever be done to them now that we have no Shakespeare and no Walter Scott. ”

“ The last execution on Tower Hill, and the last person beheaded in England, was Simon, Lord Lovat, in 1747. In his last moments he said how remarkable it seemed that a great gathering should think it worth while to assemble to see a grey head taken off. A stone in Trinity Square Gardens marks the exact site of the scaffold. These gardens are a touch of pleasing contrast close beside grimy warehouses, and in the daytime the constant din of business life throbs on every side, an offset to their quietness. Otway, the poet, lived and died on Tower Hill, and on Tower Hill William Penn was born. ”

“ To the north of Roman London stretched vast primeval forests, and where St John’s Wood now stands, the wild boar roamed in trackless thickets. Marshes lay to the west and south, on the sites of Westminster and Southwark; a less likely place for the situation of a great capital, with the exception of St Petersburg, could not be found in Europe. On what is now Tower Hill stood a Celtic fortress, protected by the Thames on the south, and by forests and fens on the north. ”

“ Ludgate Hill is truly a rise of ground, but Tower Hill is only such a bad eminence as may gloomily lift itself in history irrespective of the actual topography. Such an elevation as our own Murray Hill would be a noticeable height in London, and there are no such noble inequalities as in our up-town streets along the Hudson. All great modern cities love the plain surfaces, and London is not different from Chicago, or Philadelphia, or Paris, or Berlin, or Vienna, or St. Petersburg, or Milan in this; New York is much more mountainous, and Boston is a Sierra Nevada in comparison. ”

“ Inglesant had never seen such a wonderful sight before—once afterwards he saw one like it, more terrible by far. The little island of the scaffold, surrounded by a surging, pressing sea of heads and struggling men, covering the whole extent of Tower Hill; the houses and windows round full of people, the walls and towers behind covered too. ”

“ And in short, in the same house the Coroners inquest sit for the Tower liberties.
Tower dock, near the Tower Wharf.
Tower Hill, a very spacious area to the north, east and west of the Tower ditch, divided into Great and Little Tower Hill. The west end extending much farther to the north is called by the former name, and the east end, in which is the victualling office, by the latter. It must be confessed that Tower Hill has many handsome buildings, particularly among the row of houses which bound it to the west ”

“ He was still performing the service of the Mass, when the mob burst into the Chapel, seized him at the altar, hurried him across the moat to Tower Hill, where a vast multitude of those who had been unable to press into the fortress greeted his appearance with a savage yell. His head was struck off on the spot where so many famous men have since perished with more seemly circumstance. The Treasurer Hales suffered with him, and their two heads, mounted over London Bridge, grinned down on the bands of peasants who were still flocking into the capital from far-distant parts. ”

“ Upon the hill is always readily prepared at the charge of the City, a large scaffold and gallows of timber, for the execution of such traitors or transgressors are as delivered out of the Tower, or otherwise, to the Sheriffs of London, by writ, there to be executed.”
Hatton, however, describes Tower Hill in the reign of Queen Anne as “a spacious place extending round the west and north parts of the Tower, where there are many good new buildings, mostly inhabited by gentry and merchants.” ”

“ How refreshing it would be to leave the traffic of Great Tower Street behind and pass into the{17} tranquillity of Shakespeare’s day, as we entered the Tower gateway. The modern policeman should no longer repeat the irritating cry, “Get your tickets! Get your tickets!” at the foot of Tower Hill; the wretched refreshment shed, which all visitors are compelled to pass through, should no longer assail us on our entry with its close atmosphere savouring of stale buns. ”

“ The next event in the history of the Tower is the imprisonment and execution of the Scotch Jacobite lords after the rebellion of 1745. For more than a score of years the old fortress had been free of political prisoners, and Tower Hill had seen no more executions. The blood of the “Rebel Lords,” as they were called, was the last that dyed the scaffold in England. These “Rebel Lords” were the Marquis of Tullibardine, the Earl of Cromarty, and Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino. ”

“ Thousands of humbler spectators constantly covered Tower Hill. 375 But among the marks of public respect and sympathy which the prelates received there was one which more than all the rest enraged and alarmed the King. He learned that a deputation of ten Nonconformist ministers had visited the Tower. He sent for four of these persons, and himself upbraided them. They courageously answered that they thought it their duty to forget past quarrels, and to stand by the men who stood by the Protestant religion. ”

“ On leaving the Tower gateway we turn into the gardens on the right and walk along the pathway that lies beneath Tower Hill and above the moat. An excellent view is to be obtained from these gardens of the outer defences of the Tower. The western front exhibits a striking mass of buildings of various age and colour. ”

“ During the last fifty years the whole appearance of Windsor Hill has been transformed, the hand of the restorer having not even spared the venerable curfew tower—now for some forty-eight years disfigured by a roof so monstrous in its ugliness that it stands forth as a surpassing and convincing proof of our national lack of artistic taste. ”

“ In 1604 the Guy Fawkes conspiracy necessitated a fresh batch of captives being lodged in the Tower, and during our visit to the dungeons beneath the White Tower we shall learn something of their fate, and of the fate, also, of another prisoner of this period, Sir Thomas Overbury, poisoned in the Bloody Tower. Felton, the rogue responsible for the assassination of Buckingham, had bought the knife with which he did the deed on Tower Hill at a booth there. He was brought to the Tower on his arrest and confined until the day of his hanging at Tyburn. ”

“ Its walls are of great thickness, and light is admitted through narrow loopholes. On the basement floor is a small chamber, with deeply-recessed windows, and a vaulted roof of very curious construction. This tower served as a place of imprisonment to John Fisher, the martyred bishop of Rochester, beheaded on Tower Hill for denying Henry the Eighth’s supremacy; and to the Princess Elizabeth, who was confined within it by her sister, Queen Mary. ”

“ Queen Anne had some French prisoners of war immured in the Tower soon after her accession, and, in 1712, Sir Robert Walpole was nominally a captive there. I say nominally, because his apartment during his confinement from February to July was crowded by fashionable visitors whose carriages blocked the gateway at the foot of Tower Hill. We are indeed in modern times when captivity in the old fortress-prison was treated as a society function ”

“ The artists may have been so intent upon crowding their pictures with tightly packed citizens gazing upon the decapitation of some unfortunate nobleman that they forgot to put in the trees. Certainly several of the fine trees that now adorn Trinity{158} Square are of some age, and represent the survivors of that fragment of the ancient forest which crept up to the eastern side of the hill, and which we see so plainly marked in many of the old maps.
In a house on the western side of Tower Hill Lady Raleigh dwelt with her son when her husband was denied her society. ”

“ The skeletons of the aged Countess of Salisbury and of the Duke of Monmouth were also found. A list of the notable people buried in this church will be seen on the west wall near the door, and here, too, are preserved portions of the leaden coffin lids of the Scots lords who were the last victims of the block on Tower Hill. Several very interesting memorials of those famous in Tower annals will be noticed on the east and south walls near the chancel. ”

“ Constant quarrels and disputes, however, arose on the subject of the boundaries between the City and the Lieutenant of the Tower, until the charge of Tower Hill was finally vested in the City. In the view of the Tower and its surroundings, to which I have so often referred, made by Haiward and Gascoyne in 1597, the scaffold is shown standing some76 distance to the north of Tower Street: its site is now a pleasant garden, the place of execution being recorded by an inscription on a tablet placed on the grass plot within the railings. ”

“ The Tower is historically notable for the many distinguished persons — traitors and others — who have been confined within its walls as prisoners of state or have met death on the scaffold or at the headsman's block on the adjoining Tower Hill. In modern days it has become the repository of the national arms ”

“ Again the curtain falls on tragedy and rises on comedy. Twelve years later Tower Green was given over to revelry; and laughter, singing, and mumming were revived under the walls of the White Tower. A writer of the time speaks of the “marvellous cunning pageants,” and the “fountains running with wine” as Henry brought hither his new Queen, Anne Boleyn, for whom, on her entry “there was such a pele of gonnes as hath not byn herde lyke a great while before.” Once more, also, there was made procession, in state, but with scant applause of the people this time, from Tower Hill to Westminster. ”

“ Looking round to see if there were no bridge or ferry, he caught sight of the grey church tower which he had observed from afar while sailing. It was quite a mile from the city, and isolated outside the walls. It stood on the slope of the hill, over whose summit the tower was visible. He wandered up towards it, as there were usually people in or about the churches, which were always open day and night. ”

“ Tower Hill seems to have possessed a gallows also, for we find frequent record of criminals being “hanged in chains” there, either for State or other offences. Under an oak tree that grew on the slope towards the Tower gateway, the public stocks stood, and in the vestry minutes of Allhallows Barking, under the date December 16, 1657, we find it recorded that an order was given “for the erection of stocks and whipping-post required by the statute at the churchyard corner in Tower Street against Mr. ”

“ On the southern edge of the hill, and rising high above the rampart, the broad flat roof of the tower affords an off-look that scarcely has an equal for beauty of prospect and interest in historical association. ”

“ And after all, owing to the tower on the top having fallen down, and the trees having grown up, the view is 51 limited to a narrow opening on either side, where an avenue, now rarely used, affords an easy though tedious ascent. A square block of stone stands near the remains of the tower, dedicated to an upper forest-master, who had fulfilled fifty years of service, by his friends and subordinates. However, there is such a charm in the wild, lonely forest, that one need not regret half an hour's exertion in scrambling up a steep hill under its shadow. ”

“ Thence to O’Hara’s Tower, the highest point of the rock. It was built by a former Governor, who, forgetful of the laws of [442] terrestrial curvature, thought he might look from the tower into the port of Cadiz. The tower is riven, and may be climbed along the edges of the crack. We got to the top of it; thence descended the curious Mediterranean Stair—a zigzag, mostly of steps down a steeply falling slope, amid palmetto brush, aloes, and prickly pear.
Passing over the Windmill Hill, we were joined at the ‘Governor’s Cottage’ by a car, and drove afterwards to the lighthouse at Europa Point. ”

“ Some are early examples of English cannon found in the Mary Rose, wrecked off Spithead in 1545. Two solemn ravens hover about these old guns day by day, and perch at times, with significant gravity, on the site of the block near by. Tower Green was the place of private, as Tower Hill was the place of public, execution, and was reserved for culprits of Royal rank. This open space in the centre of the buildings saw prisoners led from cell to cell, saw many a headless body carried on rude stretcher to burial{121}
THE KING’S HOUSE FROM TOWER GREEN in St. ”