White Tower

“ 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 main entrance of the White Tower opened out on the first floor of the Keep, whence a turnpike staircase led up to the second floor, and downwards to the basement with its dungeons. The mural corridors or passages in the thickness of the walls which encircle the State rooms, are so narrow that only one person could pass along them at a time, which would have been of great advantage in case of an attack on the building, for a small number of men could have defended the White Tower against a host of besiegers. The Normans showed a rare skill in the strategic construction of their strongholds. ”

“ The whole three miles of granite table-land, seals, sea-birds, and human beings, are mere accidents and appendages—the pedestal and the ornaments of that great white tower in the centre, whose sleepless fiery eye blinks all night long over the night-mists of the Atlantic. ”

“ Thanks to the drastic removals of recent years, the White Tower stands to-day very much as when first erected. In plan it is practically rectangular, but the north-east angle is capped by a projecting circular turret containing the great main staircase that ascends from the basement to the roof, serving each floor en passant, while the south angle of the east face has a large semicircular projection that contains the apse of the chapel. The main staircase terminates in a large circular turret of two stories, that rises some twenty-nine feet above the roof. ”

“ The White Tower once more claims our attention. Already described as having walls of enormous thickness, this venerable stronghold is divided into four stories including the vaults. The latter consist of two large chambers and a smaller one, with a coved termination at the east, and a deeply-recessed arch at the opposite extremity. Light is admitted to this gloomy chamber by four semicircular-headed loopholes. At the north is a cell ten feet long by eight wide formed in the thickness of the wall, and receiving no light except from the doorway. ”

“ The White Tower or Keep.—This is the very heart and centre of the Tower buildings, and all the lesser towers and connecting walls, making the Inner and Outer Wards, and the broad moat{110} encircling all, are but the means of protection and inviolable security of this ancient keep. Within its rock-like walls a threatened king could live in security. ”

“ To the English race the Tower of London will always be the most interesting of its Monuments; for it forms a group of buildings that for eight centuries has been the very heart of the English capital, and, since the victor of Hastings raised the great Keep—or White Tower—through all the succeeding centuries, the Tower has been closely connected with the history of England.
It would be vain to search any other city, Rome itself not excepted, for another such group of buildings, or to match the historic interest and splendid record of the ancient Norman structure. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The coronation happily over, William began to build his Tower. The City should be fortified against an enemy by its strong wall—the stronger the better—but he was not going to allow it to be fortified against himself. Therefore he would build one Tower on the east and another on the west of the City wall, so that he could command ingress or egress, and also the river above or below the bridge. The Tower on the east became the great White Tower, that in the west was the Castle Montfichet. ”

“ That was the kind of thing for him to have in his mind: rest and strength. Drowsing away in his chair—the candles flinging lions and tigers on the wall, the old brown of the gallery sparkling and shining under the uneven light—the tower seemed to come to him through all the black intervening space of night. It grew and grew, until it stood beyond the window, great grey and white stone, towering to the sky, filling the world; that and the sea alone in all creation. ”

“ The White tower is at present 90 feet in height, and is therefore much lower than the nearly contemporary tower of Beaugency. Its area, however, is far greater, covering an oblong of 118 feet from east to west by 107 feet from north to south. It is four stages in height, and was built of rubble masonry,121 ashlar work being confined entirely to the pilaster buttresses and windows, and the plinth. Modern repairs have made the original appearance of the tower hard to reconstruct. ”

“ The White City stood in the silence like Shinar Tower after the confusion, for if on the plains of Babylonia people began to speak many tongues, here the harmony of language found a prophetic expression again. The world had not built here a tower to touch the sky, from which men might enter heaven ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The central tower may be objected to as fully too small or too light for the size of the building, but it is in style in harmony with the numberless spirelets which rise like a forest around it, sometimes in clusters, and spanned by flying buttresses in lace-like decoration, which give strength and stability to a structure which, if it were not irreverent to say so, has a good deal of the look, in its white purity, of a most gigantic and beautiful bride-cake. ”

“ Who could imagine the guardian angel of the busy city, except under a sullen sky, with clouded brow and anxious eyes, and yet it looked as gay and bright at the White Gate as if a spring festival was drawing to a close with a brilliant exhibition. Wherever the walls, as far as Catherine’s Tower, afforded a foothold, they were crowded with men, women, and children. ”

“ Some people call his pictures stiff and ugly, for not every one has wise eyes to see their beauty, but the loveliness of this tower can easily be seen by all. 'There the white doves circle round and round, and rest in the sheltering niches of the delicately carved arches; there at the call of its bell the black-robed Brothers of Pity hurry past to their works of mercy. There too the little children play, and sometimes stop to stare at the marble pictures, set in the first story of the tower, low enough to be seen from the street. ”

“ It will be the easier course to step aboard another passing steamer, and continue our trip up the Thames.
The next notable group of objects is an [427] assemblage of ancient walls, battlements, and turrets, out of the midst of which rises prominently one great square tower, of a grayish hue, bordered with white stone, and having a small turret at each corner of the roof. This central structure is the White Tower, and the whole circuit of ramparts and inclosed edifices constitutes what is known in English history, and still more widely and impressively in English poetry, as the Tower. ”

“ These are continued up some twenty feet above the main building, and each is crowned with a Moorish dome and a weather vane. The White Tower, as it is called, is another of the buildings, and was erected in 1078.
One finds a comfortable waiting-room just inside the grounds, and there is always a company of visitors in waiting. When twenty are present, one of the guards leads the way hurriedly through the portcullis, calling attention to the several parts of the edifices.
We go through the Museum of Armor. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A mysterious activity continues within the towering white shell. But for us who pass in the street the engaging miracle is practically accomplished. There remains a tower to fit on—a pretty white ornament that will beckon gracefully to the clouds. ”

“ For one who has but a day to spare, the best way of proceeding is of course to get on the top of the minster tower, and stay there until his memory is refreshed by the sight of what he sees below. At a height of two hundred feet above the pavement you can overlook the great cluster of clean red roofs, and single out the twenty-five [Pg 223] churches that yet remain of the fifty once visible from this same elevation. Clifford’s Tower, a portion of the old castle, stands now within the precincts of the gaol; the line of the city walls can be seen, and the situation of the four Bars ”

“ Louder sounds the noise of the river as the evening lengthens; the dark patches of firs on the hill-sides grow darker; the rocks and cliffs look strange and uncertain; the road approaches a foaming rapid, where another strid makes the water roar impatiently; and so I completed the ten miles from Harden Tower, and came in deep twilight to the Anglers’ Inn at Kilnsey as the good folk were preparing for bed. ”

“ The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow eye, that opened suddenly, and softly in the evening. Now—
James looked at the Lighthouse. He could see the white-washed rocks; the tower, stark and straight; he could see that it was barred with black and white; he could see windows in it; he could even see washing spread on the rocks to dry. So that was the Lighthouse, was it?
No, the other was also the Lighthouse. For nothing was simply one thing. The other Lighthouse was true too. ”

“ It is incredibly steep, the path making short zigzags, as on the Gemmi, fenced by a low wall. On either side you see nothing but loose slabs of stone, which must have made the ascent well-nigh impossible to unpractised feet, before Count Schaffgotsch constructed the new path at his own cost. A hard pull to finish with. However, in about twenty minutes we come to a level, where the wind blows strong and cold, and something that looks like a house and a circular tower looms 217 through the dusk. The guide steps forward and opens a door, which admits us to a dim passage. ”

“ Within the limits of the smooth green turf and well-kept walks stands the church, an edifice with a tall square tower in the Byzantine style. The palace, too, has a tall tower, from the top of which, on our return to Erdmannsdorf—that is the Dresdener and I—we got a view of the royal domain, and the scattered houses of the Tyrolese, and always in the background the Riesengebirge. ”

“ And above the farther houses there shoot up the two towers of the Teinkirche—one of the most famous churches in Prague—which were built by George Podiebrad. The church itself is screened by the houses; but, whenever you see those graceful towers, you recognise the site of the edifice which was one of the strongholds of Hussite preachers, and where Tycho Brahe lies buried.
More narrow streets; across the end of a market-place, and passing under the arch of the ancient Powder Tower, we enter the broad streets of the Neustadt. ”

“ The distance is forest-like: nearer the woods stand out as groves, belts, and clumps, with park-like openings between, and everywhere fields and hedgerows innumerable. How your eye feasts on the uninterrupted greenness, and follows the gleaming lines of road running off in all directions, and comes back at last to survey the town at the foot of the tower!
Few towns will bear inspection from above so well as Beverley. It is well built, and is as clean in the rear of the houses as in the streets. ”