Pick of the Month

PICK OF THE MONTH: THE TOWER OF LONDON

Everyone goes to the Tower of London as a child but it is amazing how few of us ever do it again.  This is Britain’s premier fortress and the source of so many of the best stories of Britain’s past, it really demands a regular visit.  But why would you go, surely you get as good an idea of the castle driving over Tower Bridge as you do going inside?  Not true and here are some of the reasons that a visit to the Tower is sure to turn up something you simply didn’t know about history before.

The best bit is the White Tower right in the centre.  This is one of the largest and finest Norman keeps in the country built for William the Conqueror around 1078 to strengthen his hold on London.  Only two original windows survive and the entrance would have been at first floor level but it is remarkably unchanged since the eleventh century.  Spot the latrine towers and fireplaces.  The charming chapel of St John would have been used by William to talk to his God, presumably asking for divine forgiveness for his vicious progress through the Saxon homelands of the South of England or his Harrying of the North which caused the death by famine of perhaps 100,000 people.  

The White Tower was only whitewashed and thereby got its nickname in 1240 when Henry III was busy building towers around the Inner Ward established by his uncle, Richard the Lionheart. Henry III was also the first king to store the Crown Jewels in the Tower, keeping them safe from his barons who were in revolt.  He may have been responsible for the earliest Royal Menagerie – he was given 3 leopards by the Emperor Frederick II in 1235.

The Tower has always had a terrible reputation but it was really more of a palace than a prison at least until the religious strife of the 16^th and 17^th centuries.  During the pogroms against Jews in the 13^th century, 600 London Jews were imprisoned here, accused of clipping coins.  It has had lots of more famous prisoners.  Henry VIII held his Queen Anne Boleyn here before her beheading on Tower Green; Lady Jane Grey, the unfortunate teenage Nine Days Queen met the same fate in 1554; Elizabeth I was briefly held here and Sir Walter Raleigh’s chambers where he was held after he rashly married against Elizabeth’s wishes are little changed.  His son Walt was born here in 1605 and though Sir Walter was freed, he was back again at the Tower before his execution in 1618.  Later prisoners include 11 men shot for spying in the First World War and Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess, the Tower’s last prisoner in 1941.

There have been some grisly murders too.  Henry VI disappears from the pages of history when he was deposed by Edward IV during the Wars of the Roses.  Edward probably had him murdered.  More famous still are the Princes in the Tower, the two sons of Edward who were living here in 1483 but not heard of again once their uncle Richard III seized power.  Bones discovered buried at the entrance to the White Tower in 1674 were claimed as theirs, but are more likely to have been from a Roman cemetery on the same spot.  The eldest was only 12 and their real fate remains a mystery. 

There have been various reports of ghosts over the centuries.  Anne Boleyn apparently appears with her head under arm, and Henry VI and Lady Jane Grey have also been spotted as has the ghost of a bear, perhaps Old Martin a much loved grizzly bear that lived here in the 18^th century.

Prisoners were looked after by the Yeoman Warders who had formed a Royal Bodyguard since at least 1509.  They still wear the distinctive uniform which dates in style to the time of Henry VIII.  They are colloquially known as ‘Beefeaters’ probably because, as a privileged royal guard, they were allowed to eat plenty of beef at a time when it was a luxury.   They perform the Ceremony of the Keys, locking the fortress at sunset, every day.

The Tower has long been a popular tourist attraction.   Foreign visitors to London in Elizabethan times already felt it was one of the essential sights.  One of the early attractions was the Royal Menagerie, founded by Kings John and Henry III. From the 18^th century, people came to see big cats, monkeys, wolves and Old Martin.  The animals transferred to London Zoo in 1831 and sculptures by wire artist Kendra Haste recall their presence today.  The ravens are still here, Charles II first decreed that they should be protected and there have been six here ever since.  As every schoolchild knows, if they ever leave the Tower the kingdom will fall so it’s a good thing they have a Ravenmaster to look after them.

The Crown Jewels were always a popular attraction on display from 1669 and moved to the present Jewel House in the Waterloo Barracks in 1994.  Henry III’s Jewel House had been broken into by the rebels of the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381 and the royal regalia was sold off or melted down under Oliver Cromwell.  The new Crown Jewels recreated for Charles II after the Restoration of 1660 and the 800-year-old Coronation Spoon were nearly lost in 1843 when Colonel Thomas Blood tied up the Keeper of the Crown Jewels and was about to make off with them when the Keeper’s son caught them in the act.

Another important visitor attraction was the Line of Kings, recently reinstalled in the White Tower.  This is a bit of royal propaganda set up in 1688 to stress the new Hanoverian kings connections with their royal forebears.  It features royal armour set on life-sized wooden figures riding wooden horses.  Some of the models were made by master carver, Grinling Gibbons. ‘Bad’ kings like Richard III were left out and heroic kings like Edward III and Henry VIII get pride of place.   Either way, it is a great way to display armour, a fascinating insight into the need for royal propaganda and one of the longest running tourist attraction in Britain.  By the time the ticket office was installed at the Tower in 1851, nearly half a million visitors were coming to visit each year. Make sure you are one of them in 2018