Tower of London

“ Nothing, except the Royal tombs of Westminster, so much helps to prove the reality of History, as this collection of graves and slabs and tablets in this little church. And here were kept the Crown jewels about which many a chapter might be written.
But to study the Tower of London one must visit it with the History of England in hand. Hither were brought all the State prisoners: here they were confined: here they were executed. Every tower, every stone reminds one of sufferers and criminals and traitors and innocent victims. ”

“ The imagination shrinks back, as, through the darkness of bygone years, it pictures for a moment the terrible tragedies which must have been enacted in such a blood-stained dungeon.
We now come to the White Tower, with its four turrets, which may be seen from many an eminence that overlooks London, and is always pointed out as “The Tower.” It is to the east of London what Westminster Abbey is to the west, and St. Paul’s to the centre of the city—the great object of attraction. ”

“ New York could easily build a London Tower that would look worthier of its memories than the real one, without even making it a sky-scraper.
So it seems at the moment, but I am not sure that it is so true as it is that after passing the Tower the one shore of the Thames begins to lose its dignity and beauty, and to be of like effect with the other, which is the Southwark side, and like all the American river-sides that I remember. Grimy business piles, sagging sheds, and frowsy wharves and docks grieve the eye, which the shipping in the stream does little to console. ”

“ We ascend by one of the alleys, and come once more into something like life and motion and see the clattering cabs and omnibuses hurrying by.
Again, what can be better than the view as you walk towards Cripplegate, through winding streets, and begin to see the old gaunt, quaint, weather-beaten tower of St. Giles’s Church rising above the houses? There is nothing in London better than this solemn tower, formed of old stones half the way up, the other half of grimed, caked brick, the whole surmounted by an odd and quaint belfry. ”

“ Before the spectator stretches the famous “Pool,” that wide space of ever-shifting water on which rides all the shipping of the mighty river. It is a view which combines past and present; all the stir, the toil and traffic of the Thames lies before one, and for background rise the pinnacles, towers, and embattled walls of the grim old fortress, looking down on the ever-changing but time-defying stream.
Returning to the Middle Tower, and passing along the causeway which spans the moat, the Byward Tower is reached. ”

“ Of these relics of ancient Augusta, a fragment is to be seen at the eastern end of the White Tower. According to both historians, the building of the White Tower was commenced in 1078. When a tramway was run from the river wharf, some years ago, to the base of the White Tower for the shipment of stores, the engineers had to excavate some 20 feet of solid masonry into the Norman keep, such was its huge strength and solidity. Freeman always writes with enthusiasm of the Tower—“the mighty Tower of London,” he loves to call it; and when he wrote of the Tower, he had the White Tower in his mind. ”

“ THE TOWER OF LONDON ASSOCIATED in the minds of Englishmen with traditions of the Roman conquest of Britain, and with the history of the Norman conquest of England, the Tower of London frowned gloomily, and almost menacingly, on the capital which it had been reared to protect against possible invaders. ”

“ I dwell on these points in order to show how hopeless it is to catch any of the real spirit and message of the Tower when to-day, to-day, to-day, is ever intruding itself. We ask for leisure to contemplate a far-off yesterday, and to teach the boys and girls we take to the Tower something of the value of the Tower buildings as concrete embodiments of England’s noble history; but we are only permitted to walk hurriedly in one specified direction, and illusion is destroyed at every point. ”

“ My wish has been to persuade those who come to visit the Tower that there is a great deal to be seen in its immediate vicinity that the majority of visitors have hitherto neglected, either for want of time or want of guidance. A noble and historic building like the Tower resembles a venerable tree whose roots have spread into the soil in all directions, during the uncounted years of its existence, far beyond the position of its stem. ”

“ There is probably no building in the world around which cluster so many varied and thrilling associations as the Tower in London. For centuries it had been the theatre of England's bloodiest deeds, and its gray old walls stand as the lasting monument of tyranny, despotism, and death. Every stone in that structure has a history to tell. Centuries have come and gone, whole dynasties disappeared, and yet that old Tower still rises in its strength. It is situated in the east part of the metropolis, and on the north side of the river Thames. ”

“ Nevertheless, even (p. 46) viewed from close by, it is very telling, and dwarfs immeasurably any other building near it; see, for instance, how the little Tower of London, that ancient and most historic fortress, loses its size from its close juxtaposition to those supporting towers! The "bascules," or drawbridges, are worked by hydraulic power, and it is a curious and interesting sight to see them raised to allow tall vessels to pass. Below the Tower Bridge, the broad river seems to extend in a sea of masts, the city to become a world of wharves and docks. ”

“ Old London Bridge escaped the fire, and indeed remained until 1834, although the houses clustering over it had been removed at the close of the reign of George II., and the only prominent building in the panorama which Shakespeare or Raleigh would now be able to recognise, could they look across the rivers Styx and Thames, would be the great White Tower with its surrounding lesser towers and battlements. All the rest, like “the baseless fabric of a vision,” has passed away for ever. ”

“ These things were as genuine as Mrs Jarley’s Waxworks. “Previous to the year 1826,” write Britton and Brayley in their history of the Tower, “nothing could present a more incongruous mass of discordant materials than the Horse Armoury of the Tower of London. Armour of the time of Edward the Sixth was ignorantly appropriated to that of William the Conqueror: foot soldiers were ranged between the horsemen, and those humble ciceroni, the warders, ascribed to the various implements of war names and uses, alike unknown, either in ancient or modern warfare.” ”

“ Apropos of London towers, one of the most truly graceful and effective is that of St. Clement Dane’s Church in the Strand, though it is encumbered with a clumsy church behind. Often of a winter’s evening, as you come down Holywell Street, or Booksellers’ Row, you hear its merry chimes jangling out, growing more and more noisy and riotous as you approach. It may be some moonlight night, when its graceful outlines are projected against the bluish sky behind, while the tower windows, lit up from within, show where the ringers are at work. ”

“ It is not possible to take away others that offend the eye at every turn. It is not possible to restore the Tower to its pristine grandeur. But it is possible to prevent further mutilation and desecration. It is possible to clear the reverend and massive columns of Saint John’s Chapel, which look like giants of departed days, from the thick coat of white-wash in which they are crusted,—to sweep away the presses with which its floors are cumbered, and to find some other equally secure, but less interesting—less sacred, in every sense, depository for the Chancery rolls. ”

“ Traversing the green, some hundred and forty feet brings us to the Beauchamp, or Cobham Tower, connected with the Bell Tower by means of a footway on the top of the ballium wall. Erected in the reign of Henry the Third, as were most of the smaller towers of the fortress, this structure appears, from the numerous inscriptions, coats of arms, and devices that crowd its walls, to have been the principal state-prison. Every room, from roof to vault, is covered with melancholy memorials of its illustrious and unfortunate occupants. ”

“ The well, which must have been very deep, is choked with rubbish to the brim. Meanwhile, in order to realize what the place in its present condition is like, one need but imagine how the Tower of London would look if the whole of the inner buildings—white tower, chapel, armory, governor’s quarters, and all—were leveled in shapeless ruin, and only the outer walls and moat were left. ”

“ Depositing his caliver against the wall of the turret, Winwike told his companion to look around. Renard obeyed, and a glorious panorama met his gaze. Immediately beneath him lay the fortress, with its chain of flowers—its ramparts—its fortifications—its bridges, and its broad deep moat. Beyond was spread out old and picturesque London, with its numerous steeples, above which rose the massive tower of St. Paul’s. A little on the left was old London Bridge, covered with out-houses—the noise of the falling water, and the mills, being distinctly audible where they stood. ”

“ Most of our Sovereigns, from the Conqueror’s time right down to the Restoration, used the Tower of London. Kings and Queens who were powerful used it as a prison for their enemies; those who were weak and feared the people used it as a fortress for themselves. This latter use of the Tower was particularly instanced in the reign of Stephen—an illuminating chapter in the story of London. ”

“ The sun poured down its rays upon the ancient fortress, which had so lately opened its gates to an usurper, but which now like a heartless rake had cast off one mistress to take another. The whole line of ramparts on the west was filled with armed men. On the summit of the White Tower floated her standard, while bombard and culverin kept up a continual roar from every lesser tower. ”

“ The history of the Tower, as the history of other places, will give us names of famous men and the numbering of years in plenty, but of the inner everyday life of some early century there—nothing. It is only the skilful in stagecraft and romance that dare touch the Tower to turn its records to such uses; men of less skill fail, and give us novels and plays that make weary reading and weary sitting-out. ”

“ The present buildings are partly of the Norman period; but architecture of almost all the styles which have flourished in England may be found within the walls. It is well to remember that though the Tower is no longer a place of great military strength it has in time past been a fortress, a palace, and a prison, and to view it rightly we must regard it in this threefold aspect.
It was first built as a fortress, and has a central Keep, called the "White Tower." The Inner Ward is defended by a wall, flanked by thirteen towers, the entrance to it being on the south side under the Bloody Tower. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To lay down a comedy of the great dramatist and take up contemporary records of the Tower is as if one had stepped out of the warm sunshine and fragrant air of mid-June into a dark, damp vault whose atmosphere stings with the chill of a November night.
Tower dungeons were becoming too crowded. Many a poor obscure captive was sent over to{68} France, perhaps to a harder lot, and the vacant places were filled by political offenders. Northumberland killed himself in the Tower; Arundel, made prisoner with him, died—from self-imposed privations, it is said—some months after. ”

“ Our fear may well be lest the modernising of the Tower, and the erection within the walls of{16} wholly characterless piles that would be considered unworthy of place even in a rising suburb, will in time destroy our sense of the value of any of the buildings bequeathed to us from earliest times. Little by little the boys of to-day, who will be the citizens of the day after to-morrow, will come to look at the Tower as a very ill-painted showroom, or as none too spacious a place to accommodate a garrison. ”

“ This tower is still in existence, and devoted to the same purpose as of old,—though its chambers, instead of being used as prison-lodgings, form the domestic offices of the governor. In shape it is circular, like all the other towers, with walls of great thickness pierced by narrow loopholes, admitting light to the interior. Courtenay was confined in a small room on the basement floor, having a vaulted roof supported by pointed arches of curious construction, with deep recesses in the intervals. From this strong and gloomy cell it seemed impossible he could escape ”

“ THE LATE REIGNS During the late reigns there is little that calls for record in the history of the Tower: happy is the land that has no history. But for the fire in 1841, which destroyed the ugly old Armoury of William III.’s time, and the dastardly attempt made in 1885 to blow up the White Tower, no events of much interest have happened. ”