THE TOWER OF LONDON

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 April 1937, Page 4

THE TOWER OF LONDON

LONG, GRIMY STORY. “In the Tower of London,” says Walter Bell, who is London’s most devoted historian, ‘‘you look back almost the’full length of Englands history, which this building has touched at so many points. Where is its equal rival to be found, in this country or elsewhere? There is none. The Continent, it is true, has castles larger than this, but none with such rich and continuous association. The Tower as a Royal palace makes others mere chiirlcituiis, things of yes-, terday. , I The Kremlin in Moscow, the Doge s Palace in Venice, are of the four-, teenth century, Mr Bell writes. The, Seraglio in Stamboul was built by] Mohammed 11.; the oldest part of the] Vatican was commenced by the Bor-, gia whose name it bears. The Louvre] was begun in the_reign of KingHenryj VIII., the Tuileries in that of Eliza-, belli. Versailles was almost a swamp, when Oliver Cromwell was lighting the Civil War. The Escurial is, 1 eighteenth century. As a prison the' castle of San Angelo in Romo alonej can compare with the Tower in an-j tiquity. Tho White Tower, from which the; castle derives its name, was built by, William of Normandy—the “Con-' queror." Tho work was begun in the] year 1078. It rises to a height of 91) feet and its walls are from 12 to 151 feet thick. All four sides are of dif-j ferent lengths and there is not ai corner angle which a careful surveyor would pass as correct. Tho First Prisoner. i A priest—Gundulf. a monk from the I Abbey of Beu, in Normandy—supervised tho building, and another— Ranull' Plambard, who afterwards] built. Durham Cathedral —was Hie ( first iecorded prisoner, and the lirst, to make an escape. ' Tho richest jewel in the Tower, not excepting oven the Regalia, is the Norman chapel, tho earliest, in Eng-

land. It is in the second storey o the White Tower. All the great floo space of the White Tower is used to day tor the display of military tuny from the long bow of Crecy t weapons of the Great War, and thei 1 is a magnificent array of armour. - From the turret in which Flam .'stead, the first astronomer Royal o s the time of Charles, had his observa 1 tory before Grenwich was ready fo >i him, to the lungeons, in one of whic!

is the original eleventh century cir 1 cular well, 40ft deep, the White Towe ■Jis packed with grim relics and ye . grimmer memories. • | Once within these encircling walls the visitor to-day moves about : I medieval fortress, complete a I planned, wanting nothing. Keep am '.dungeons, curtain wall and enliladini •j towers, and the encompassing ditch d the well lor water supply, all ar< I there, in two of the turrets tha ' guard entrances, the By ward Towe: hind the Bloody Tower, even the iron ‘ shod wooden portcullis, keeps ii | place, each with its winch and tackle and may bo lowered. ! Some of the towers have a mejan--1 choly history as places in which State ' prisoners languished, or went t(

1 execution on Tower Green within the j tower precincts, or on Tower Hi! outside. In the Bloody Tower the twe I young Princes —sons of Edward IV — • were foully murdered by their uncle i Richard. Duke of Gloucester, as : ; prelude to usurping the throne. Most j of the 13 years’ imprisonment which ' Sir Walter Raleijgh underwent, was ! passed there, 'hhe walls of a room j in the Beauchamp Tower bear close 'upon a hundred inscriptions that were cut by prisoners, '[’hey are pathetic memorials. Torture was not the only ordeal the prisoner had to endure; there- was tedium, too. Close prisoner j hero -S nionethes. 31! wekes, 321 days, i 3.386 hotirij," runs one inscription. ’‘The most unhappy man in the j world,' runs another, ‘is he that is 1 not pacicnt in adversities, for men arc ; not killed with the adversities they have, but with the impaciencc with which they suffer.’’ Tower Green, with its tame ravens, tall trees and mellow old houses, is

f one of the most delightful spots in r London, but it is also one of the - saddest. Among the women who , were beheaded here were Anne j Boleyn, the second of Henry VIII.’s 3 six wives. Katherine Howard, the fifth, and Lady Jane Grey, the 17- - year-old queen for a few brief days. ? Church of St, Peter ad Vincula* i Sadder still than Tower Green is - the church of St. Peter ad Vincula to r the north of it. “In truth, there is no t sadder spot on earth,” Lord Macaulay declared. In a small place within the altar rails, “there lie two Queens of i England—three, indeed', if one counts 5 among them Lady June Grey. Room is [ found there for one who was Pror lector of England. Four others beside Somerset were English dukes, j heads of the proudest territorial L families, and one of Royal blood, who . died violently because they plotted ’ against the throne. A queen’s fav- [ curite, Elizabeth’s Earl of Essex, keeps them company.” A brass plate on the west, wall . gives the names of 34 prisoners of . distinction who are buried in the , chapel. Of these, all but ten perished , by the headsman’s axe. One queer fact is that the tower, i through its centuries of imprison- . ment. suffering and violent death, ..has accumulated' no ghosts. The last man who saw a ghost was a sentry ol tbe GOth Rifles, in ISG4, who lunged ineffectually with his bayonet at a spectral woman’s ligyre as it emerged from the King’s House, and then fell senseless to the ground.