Part 4 (1/2)
In 1278 no less than 600 Jeere i the coin Many of theloomy vault now called ”Little Ease,” where, from the entire absence of sanitary accommodation and proper ventilation, their numbers were rapidly thinned by death[50]
[Illustration: THE TOWER OF LONDON]
The mural arcade of the inner curtain wall between the Bell tower, ”a,” the Beauchamp tower, ”b,” and the Devereux tower, ”c,” is probably of this period In spite ofand alterations to adapt it for the use of firearn to those of Caernarvon Castle and Castle Coch, near Cardiff The great quay, ”O,” does not appear to have been walled through; it had its own gates, ”P,” at either end Two ses of the two posterns, ”H” and ”K” The outer curtain wall, ”R,” commanded the ditch and wharf, and was in its turn commanded by the ain by the keep, while the narrow limits of the outer ward effectually prevented any atte upra the outer ould be overwhelmed by the archery froe that even plate armour would be no protection, while, should they succeed in carrying the inner ward, the re upon its passive strength, hold out to the last within its massive walls in hope of external succour, before famine or a breach compelled a surrender
The Scotch wars of Edward I filled the Toithere the Earls of Ross, Athol, and Menteith, and the famous Sir Williaree of severity: some were ordered to be kept in a ”strait prison in iron fetters,” as were the Bishops of Glasgow and St Andrew's (though they were imprisoned elsewhere); others are to be kept ”body for body,”
that is to say, safely, but not in irons, with permission to hear mass; while a few are to be treated with leniency, and have chambers, with a privy cha (then at Linlithgow) sent the Abbot of Weste of having stolen 100,000 of the royal treasure placed in the abbey treasury for safe-keeping! After a long trial, the sub-prior and the sacrist were convicted and executed, when their bodies were flayed and the skins nailed to the doors of the re-vestry and treasury of the abbey as a sole to other such evildoers,[52] the abbot and the rest of theacquitted
No works of any in of Edward II, the only occurrences of ihts Templars and the imprisonment of many of them at the Tohere the Grand Prior, William de la More, expired in solitary confines that er Mortimer from the keep (which reads almost like a repetition of Flarace and imprisonment[53]
The Toas the principal arsenal of Edward III, who in 1347 had a unpowder_ there, when various entries in the Records is”[54]
A survey of the Toas ordered in 1336, and the Return to it is printed _in extenso_ by Bayley[55] Some of the towers are called by names (as for example, ”Corande's” and ”la Moneye” towers, the latter perhaps an early reference to the Mint) which no longer distinguish theate tower, ”N,” the two posterns of the wharf, and Petty Wales, ”_PP_,” the wharf itself, and divers other buildings--were all in need of repair, the total alass, and iron work being 2,154 17s 8d!
In 1354 the city ditch is ordered to be cleansed and prevented fro to the _Liber Albus_, the penalty of death was pro in the Tower ditch, or even in the Thames adjacent to the Tower!
In 1347 the Tower received, in the person of David, King of Scotland, the first of a long line of royal prisoners, and in 1358 the large su of France, Richard II, Henry VI, Edward V, Queens Jane Dudley, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Princess Elizabeth co the Wardrobe tower, ”s,” the Beauchamp tower, ”b,” the upper story of the Bowyer tower, ”e,” and perhaps the Constable and Broad Arroers, ”h” and ”i,” are probably of this period
Mr Clark attributes the bloody Tower gate, ” before Most probably it was re and portcullis were inserted about this tin of Richard II, to who of the Byward tower postern, ”H”
There is but little to record in the way of neorks after this Edward IV, in 1472, built an advanced work, called the Bulwark Gate, ”A,”
and nothing further transpires till the reign of Henry VIII, who ordered a survey of the dilapidations to beh cast, with flint chips inserted in the joints of the nised, as are those of Wren by his use of Portland stone
The buildings of the old palace being , ”n,” adjoining the Bell tower, ”a,” was built about this tis,” but was first known as the ”King's House” It contains a curiousthe Gunpowder Plot of 1605, of which it gives an account, and enumerates the names of the conspirators, and of the Commissioners by whom they were tried
The quaint storehouses of the Tudor period were replaced in the reign of Willia, destroyed by fire in 1841, the site of which is now occupied by the Wellington barracks
The old palace buildings have long since vanished entirely Towers have been rebuilt or restored, and in 1899 a new guard house has been built between Wakefield tower, ”l,” and the south-west angle of the keep
The hideously ugly effect of its staring new red brick in contrast with the old and time-worn stone of the ancient fortressthe i of any earlier period During the clearance of the site for its erection, two discoveries were made--one of a Norman well, ”hich was found to have its top completely hidden by modern brickwork; the other, a ree, ”9,” of which the presence was only detected by its being accidentally broken into This, when cleared out, was found to terminate in a horrible subterranean prison pit under the south-west angle of the keep (hich, however, it has no means of communication), that doubtless served as the _oubliette_ of the Tower
The pit was elass and pottery, broken weapons, and many cannon balls of iron, lead, and stone, relics probably of Wyatt's unsuccessful attack in 1554
Leaving the pit, the passage dips rapidly, and, tunnelling under both wards and their walls, ees a little to the east of Traitors' Gate (see plan), where its arched head h formerly several feet below the level of the water in the moat As it traverses the site of the Hall, there is some reason to suppose that the lower end served as a sewer, for there was a si from 1259, at the old Palace of Westminster, so that this may likewise be attributed to Henry III[56]
It will be seen that the blood-curdling description of the horrors of the rat-pit in Harrison Ainsworth's immortal roh when he wrote its existence was unknown Rats froarbage from the palace kitchens, and if any wretched prisoner had been placed in this dreadful dungeon he would speedily have been devoured _alive_![57]
The presence of a single subterranean passage at the Tower ought not to have aroused so much surprise, for such ”_souterrains_” were a not infrequent feature of the mediaeval fortress They may be found at Arques, Chateau Gaillard, Dover, Winchester, and Windsor (three), while Nottingham has its historic ”Mortimer's Hole” Sometimes they led to carefully enerally carried along and at the base of the interior faces of the curtain walls, with the object of preventing atte, at once betrayed to listeners by the dull reverberations of pickaxes in the rocky ground There were doubtless others at the Tower, now blocked up and forgotten; indeed, Bayleybetween the Devereux and Flint towers[58]
There is an allusion to them in the narrative by Father Gerard, SJ, of his arrest, torture in, and escape from the Tower in 1597;[59] but the history of the many illustrious captives who have suffered within these walls would in itself suffice for a large volume, while so much, and from so many pens, has already been written thereon, that I have contented myself with few allusions thereto, and those necessarily of the briefest
It is encies have rendered it needful to remove fro inscriptions hich their inuile the monotony of captivity, and as far as possible to concentrate them in the upper room within the Beauchamp tohich many of them have no historic association whatever; but as the public would otherwise have been debarred fro the unht otherwise appear, while they have been fully illustrated and carefully described by Bayley
About the time of Edward I a Mint was first established in the western and northern portions of the outer bailey, where it remained until, in 1811, it was removed to the New Mint in East Siven to that portion of the bailey, now commemorates this circumstance
When, about 1882, the extension of the ”Inner Circle” Railas in progress, the site of the peruinary executions took place, was discovered in Trinity Square, reround A blank space, with a sarden, now marks the spot
In a recent work upon the Tower, an aes entering the ditch, rowing onto a kind of subed slipway at the Cradle tohen, _mirabile dictu_, boat and all were to be lifted out of the water and drawn into the fortress!”