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Authors: Geoff Abbott
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recently the ill-fated rifle range where enemy spies were executed by firing squad during the two World Wars. Behind the high walls of the Tower of London they faced death bravely. Who knows when their spirits found peace?
Mint Street, Outer Ward
The Bloody Tower
Stay ye near the tower, the Bloody Tower, at ten,
And ye shall hear a cry,
A great Amen,
That lifts the very Raven’s savage head,
And wakes the sleeping servant in his bed.
‘God preserve King Henry!’ is the shout,
And by warder ‘gainst strong guard the keys are carried,
As if iron into palm the twain are married….
And the while the candlelamp it goes not out.
So praise ye all that God preserves King Hal,
Foolhardy is the one whose voice is weak,
But if ye have aught else on which to speak….
Wait till the candlelamp it goeth out!
Bloody Tower Arch
The Inner Ward is the area surrounding the White Tower, and is bordered by the inner wall. For many centuries, when Royalty resided in the White Tower and the Royal Apartments, the inner ward was for the exclusive use of Royalty and the nobles of the court. Also within the protection of the inner wall were stored the nation’s armoury, the State Papers, and the Regalia and Jewels. During these centuries there was only one entrance to the inner ward, a heavily guarded archway beneath a gatehouse known originally as the Garden Tower (it overlooked the gardens of the Lieutenant’s Lodgings) but later as the Bloody Tower. Situated only yards from Traitors’ Gate, it served admirably as a prison for princes and knights, bishops and judges.
Here, in Queen Mary’s reign, languished Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop Latimer of Winchester and Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London. Opposing the Pope’s supremacy, they were condemned as heretics and later burnt to death at Oxford.
Here, in the same reign, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, was confined for attempting to make his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England. He perished beneath the axe on Tower Hill, the vast crowd cheering as he died.
The Bloody Tower
Judge Jeffries, the Hanging Judge of the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685, eventually caught by the mob, was placed in the Bloody Tower for his own protection – where he drank himself to death with copious draughts of brandy.
The Bloody Tower also heard the whispering of evil conspirators, when Sir Thomas Overbury survived fearful poisoning for over four months. He had sought to persuade his friend Robert Carr not to marry the vicious Countess of Essex, but he under-estimated her influence and malice. Finally her poisonous concoctions took effect, and in the Bloody Tower he died a horrifying death.
But if the stones could speak, surely they would lament the deaths of the two little princes in 1483. Confined, it is said, in the upper chamber of the Bloody Tower, the two small boys, twelve-year-old King Edward V and his nine-year-old brother Richard Duke of York, were taken from their mother’s care into the custody of their uncle, Richard Duke of Gloucester. Placed in the Bloody Tower, they were never seen again. The country could not continue without a ruler, and so the Duke of Gloucester became King Richard III.
Tradition states that one boy was smothered, the other stabbed to death. Skeletons discovered in 1674 beneath an external stairway of the White Tower were assumed to be theirs.
And so their two small ghosts, hand in hand, clad in white nightgowns, have been seen around the Bloody Tower, a sight for pity and compassion rather than terror.
Sir Walter Raleigh
Be they innocent children or worldly adults, the Bloody Tower spared none, and surely no one proved more brave than Sir Walter Raleigh. An adventurer, a scientist, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, he could do little wrong. But the next monarch, James I, had no time for men of Raleigh’s sophisticated calibre. Accused of treasonable plotting, Raleigh was soon the occupant of the Bloody Tower, a
Mint Street, Outer Ward
The Bloody Tower
Stay ye near the tower, the Bloody Tower, at ten,
And ye shall hear a cry,
A great Amen,
That lifts the very Raven’s savage head,
And wakes the sleeping servant in his bed.
‘God preserve King Henry!’ is the shout,
And by warder ‘gainst strong guard the keys are carried,
As if iron into palm the twain are married….
And the while the candlelamp it goes not out.
So praise ye all that God preserves King Hal,
Foolhardy is the one whose voice is weak,
But if ye have aught else on which to speak….
Wait till the candlelamp it goeth out!
Bloody Tower Arch
The Inner Ward is the area surrounding the White Tower, and is bordered by the inner wall. For many centuries, when Royalty resided in the White Tower and the Royal Apartments, the inner ward was for the exclusive use of Royalty and the nobles of the court. Also within the protection of the inner wall were stored the nation’s armoury, the State Papers, and the Regalia and Jewels. During these centuries there was only one entrance to the inner ward, a heavily guarded archway beneath a gatehouse known originally as the Garden Tower (it overlooked the gardens of the Lieutenant’s Lodgings) but later as the Bloody Tower. Situated only yards from Traitors’ Gate, it served admirably as a prison for princes and knights, bishops and judges.
Here, in Queen Mary’s reign, languished Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop Latimer of Winchester and Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London. Opposing the Pope’s supremacy, they were condemned as heretics and later burnt to death at Oxford.
Here, in the same reign, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, was confined for attempting to make his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England. He perished beneath the axe on Tower Hill, the vast crowd cheering as he died.
The Bloody Tower
Judge Jeffries, the Hanging Judge of the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685, eventually caught by the mob, was placed in the Bloody Tower for his own protection – where he drank himself to death with copious draughts of brandy.
The Bloody Tower also heard the whispering of evil conspirators, when Sir Thomas Overbury survived fearful poisoning for over four months. He had sought to persuade his friend Robert Carr not to marry the vicious Countess of Essex, but he under-estimated her influence and malice. Finally her poisonous concoctions took effect, and in the Bloody Tower he died a horrifying death.
But if the stones could speak, surely they would lament the deaths of the two little princes in 1483. Confined, it is said, in the upper chamber of the Bloody Tower, the two small boys, twelve-year-old King Edward V and his nine-year-old brother Richard Duke of York, were taken from their mother’s care into the custody of their uncle, Richard Duke of Gloucester. Placed in the Bloody Tower, they were never seen again. The country could not continue without a ruler, and so the Duke of Gloucester became King Richard III.
Tradition states that one boy was smothered, the other stabbed to death. Skeletons discovered in 1674 beneath an external stairway of the White Tower were assumed to be theirs.
And so their two small ghosts, hand in hand, clad in white nightgowns, have been seen around the Bloody Tower, a sight for pity and compassion rather than terror.
Sir Walter Raleigh
Be they innocent children or worldly adults, the Bloody Tower spared none, and surely no one proved more brave than Sir Walter Raleigh. An adventurer, a scientist, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, he could do little wrong. But the next monarch, James I, had no time for men of Raleigh’s sophisticated calibre. Accused of treasonable plotting, Raleigh was soon the occupant of the Bloody Tower, a
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