History Is Present

The Tower of

London

The Tower of London

The Tower of London is such an iconic symbol of London and has dominated London's skyline for nearly a millennium. It is like the Hollywood sign in LA or the  Eiffel Tower in Paris. The Tower has a fascinating past which is both amazing and bloody.

The tower wasn't just a defence for London or a place to keep thieves, traitors and criminals but it was also a royal palace for the royal family.

In 1066 William Duke of Normandy conquered England for the Normans, therefore ending Saxon rule in Britain. The Saxons that still lived in England were not happy with their new ruler. In 1078, William had a great stone fortress built in the heart of the city. No-one had seen a building of magnitude in this corner of Europe before. William wanted his fortress to stand as his legacy to England and to show his wealth and power. It captured the hearts and minds of the Londoners and today the world.

Throughout the ages, Kings and Queens have added, expanded and changed the Tower.

William never saw the Tower finished but his great-great-great grandson Henry III had a great impact on this iconic fortress. Henry transformed it into the Tower of London that millions visit each year; a royal palace by improving and expanding, building beautifully decorated lodgings for himself and Queen Eleanor.

The King did not spend a great deal of time at the Tower – he stayed only 11 times in his 56 years

London's First Zoo

reign. Although it was important that the Tower was fit for a king, it was not a favourite residence.

Henry used the Tower specifically as a bolt-hole in times of political crisis. During his reign, lions, a polar bear and an elephant were kept at the Tower, all diplomatic gifts from other rulers.

Henry’s eldest son, Edward, became Edward I of England. He built the outer defences of the Tower of London including the rooms known as the Medieval Palace. He moved the London Mint into the Tower and kept prisoners there too.

Edward was known for fighting the Scottish but before then he fought the Welsh, sending the head of the Welsh Prince Llewellyn “the Last” to decorate the Tower of London. This made his eldest son the first English Prince of Wales in 1301.

Edward III was the next King to make his mark on the Tower. His father Edward II was not particularly interested in politics and war. Edward extended the wharf part way along the riverfront to help with loading and unloading goods, especially military supplies for the Hundred Years’ War between England and France.

The need for storage space was such that crossbows and armour were kept in former royal lodgings

St Thomas' Tower

in St Thomas’ Tower. Edward’s military successes in the Hundred Years’ War also led to two kings being imprisoned at the Tower: Edward’s brother-in-law, David II of Scotland, was held at the Tower for 11 years after his capture in 1346 and John II of France was captured by Edward’s son, the Black Prince, in 1356.

Richard II’s reign began and ended at the Tower. His magnificent coronation procession set out from the Tower to Westminster Abbey in 1377. In 1399, it was at the Tower that he was pressured to sign away the crown to his cousin, Henry, son of the powerful John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

Richard used the fortress as a place of refuge in times of political crisis. However, in 1381, while he was riding out to Mile End to talk to the leaders of the Peasants’ Revolt, rebels surged into the Tower seeking ‘traitors’. Some went to the royal lodgings, sat on the king’s bed and asked Richard’s mother, the famously beautiful Joan of Kent, to kiss them! Joan fainted.

Archbishop Simon Sudbury, one of the architects of the hated Poll Tax, was rather less fortunate – he was dragged from the Tower and murdered on Tower Hill.

The Tower was a key stronghold in the conflict now during The Cousins’ War also known as The War of the Roses from 1455 to 1485. In 1460, Yorkist forces besieged the Tower where cannons were set up on the other side of the Thames to bombard the fortress and Henry’s men were forced to surrender. With his Yorkist rival installed as King Edward IV, the deposed Henry was on the run. Captured in 1465, he was taken ‘as a traitor and criminal’ to the Tower.

Five years later he was released by his supporters and briefly reinstated as king, but it was not to

Henry VI ~ A Prisoner

last. Henry was overturned once more and returned to the Tower where he died in mysterious circumstances on 21 May 1471.

Edward’s supporters claimed he died of grief, although others said his corpse bled on the pavement when it was laid out in St Paul’s. According to tradition, he was stabbed while praying in the Wakefield Tower.

Henry possibly suffered from catatonic schizophrenia which made him unfit to rule. For over a year he didn’t recognise anyone or seem to understand anything. When he recovered, he had no memory of the time he’d been ill.

Edward had his brother George Duke of Clarence executed in the Tower for plotting with France. Clarence was drowned in a barrel of Malmsey wine on the 18^th February 1478. His younger brother, Richard, benefited from the outlandish execution. According to Tudor chroniclers, Richard was in the Tower when Henry VI died. One writer alleged Henry was ‘strykked with a dagger’ by Richard himself.

One of the greatest mysteries in history took place at the Tower of London in 1483; the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower.

The 'Princes in the Tower' were Edward (1470-1483) and Richard (1473-1483), the sons of Edward IV. Shortly after Edward was crowned Edward V, he and his brother disappeared and were never seen alive again.

Edward and Richard were the only surviving sons of King Edward IV. Edward was born in 1470 while Richard was born in 1473. Edward IV had come to the throne as a result of the Wars of the Roses and managed to restore a certain amount of stability to the country.

Edward and Richard ~ The Princes in the Tower 

Edward IV died suddenly on 9 April 1483 and his eldest son was proclaimed Edward V at Ludlow. The boys' uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was named as protector. Elizabeth Woodville and her supporters attempted to replace Gloucester with a regency Council. As the new king, Edward V, travelled towards London from Ludlow Castle in Wales, he was met by Gloucester and escorted to the capital, where he was lodged in the Tower of London. In June, Edward was joined by his brother, the Duke of York.

The boys were declared illegitimate because it was alleged that their father was contracted to marry someone else before his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville thus making their marriage invalid and their children bastards.

In July 1483, Richard, Duke of Gloucester was crowned Richard III. The two boys were never seen again. It was widely believed that their uncle had them murdered. To this day no one knows what really happened to them.

Henry VIII executed two of his wives at the Tower on the charge of adultery which only one was guilty of.

Anne Boleyn, had proved unable to bear a living son for the King and Henry was anxious to marry a woman who could, he accused Anne of adultery and treason which she was innocent of. Henry VIII's fifth wife was the cousin of Anne and an alluring teenager named Catherine Howard. Henry married Catherine three weeks after his divorce to Anne of Cleeves and rumours of Catherine's past and present love affairs reached a furious Henry. She was arrested at Hampton Court Palace and later taken to the Tower of London where she was beheaded in February 1542, aged about 21.

When Henry only legitimate son Edward IV laid on his deathbed at the age of 15 his advisors feared his sister, Mary, would bring back the Catholic Faith so they had Edward name his cousin

Lady Jane Grey ~ The Nine Days Queen

Jane Grey as his heir.

Jane was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII through his younger daughter Mary. In May 1553, she was married to Lord Guildford Dudley, a younger son of Edward's chief minister, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.

When Mary heard the news of her brother’s death and usurping of the throne she headed towards London with an army. Jane was imprisoned in the Tower where she was convicted of high treason in November 1553, which carried a sentence of death, although her life was initially spared. Wyatt's rebellion of January and February 1554 against Queen Mary I's plans to marry Philip of Spain led to the execution of both Jane and her husband on Tower Green.

Lady Jane Grey had an excellent humanist education and a reputation as one of the most learned young women of her day. She was a pawn in the political game of her family and one of the saddest figures in the history of the Tower.

Mary also imprisoned her half-sister Elizabeth in the Tower of London in 1554 for suspected involvement in a plot against her, led by the traitor Sir Thomas Wyatt but it soon became clear that there was not enough evidence against Elizabeth, and she was released into house arrest in the country.

When Elizabeth entered into the Tower as a prisoner she said ‘Oh Lord! I never thought to have come here as a prisoner.’ In 1559, Elizabeth returned to the Tower under very different circumstances; for her coronation.

On 14th January, after the traditional celebrations, she left the fortress to ride through the City of London to Westminster Abbey.

The Tower from the sky

When the Stuarts came into power after the death of Elizabeth, the Tower was hardly used by the Royal household but as a fortress.

Now the Tower of London acts as a major tourist attraction bring in millions of visitors each year. I really enjoyed my visit there and want to go again. I advise that if you ever go to London the Tower is the place to visit but mind out for the ghosts.