Tower of London: palace, execution, tours

After defeating the last Saxon king of England Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror/William I of England wanted to con­trol his new kingdom. He distributed the conquered lands to his fav­our­ite nobles, a successful practice from wars in Norm­andy. They built motte-and-bailey forts and on top, soldiers built a wooden tower to house the battal­ion, its weapons, horses, food and val­uables. The bar­r­acks could become a refuge, if the outer defences were breached. Around the hill, inside the ditch, Norman soldiers built an enclosure with space for a water well, rais­ing crops, feeding livestock and holding weap­ons. 

Upper photo: Tower of London

Lower photo: entrance through the Byward Towers

defended by the moat and draw­bridge

Post-Hastings William I wanted to stake his claim to Saxon lands and to control hostile subjects. Clergy­man Gundulf (1024–1108), who des­ig­ned castles & ch­ur­ches in France, became Bishop of Roch­ester in 1077 and was asked to design the new fort­ress-castle. In 1078, William ordered building the White Tower of London, a 90’ high square tower with tapering walls, soaring up over Lon­don. The 1st floor had liv­ing quarters, soldiers’ ref­ec­t­ory, dormitory and Roman­esque Chapel of St John. The 2nd floor’s rooms were for the con­stable/Tower’s comm­ander: a great hall, ch­apel gall­ery, meet­ing room and living-rooms. And there was a cellar.

The Tower took 20 years to build, only finished when William II had a stone wall built around the Tower. Then Gun­d­ulf began a stone curtain-wall enclosing land between the Tower and riv­er. Under Henry III (r1216-72) and Edward I (r1272-1307), the Tow­er reached today’s basic design: the central White Tower surround­ed by two curtain walls with their 20 towers. The main C13th entrance was via two cyl­ind­rical Byward Towers and defended by the moat and draw­bridge.

Two of the Tower’s early prisoners of state were King John the Good of France, taken in Battle of Poitiers in 1356; Char­les Duke of Orléans, captured at Agincourt in 1415.

When King Edward IV died in 1483, Richard Duke of Glouc­ester became lord protector of his son Edward V. Glouc­ester put Ed­ward and his young brother Richard Duke of York in the Tower, awaiting Edward V’s coronation. But spurred on by Glouc­es­ter, Parl­iam­ent made the 2 princes illegitimate, confirming Glouc­ester as King Richard III. Were the young Princes in the Tower mur­d­ered in the Tower in mid 1483?

Inmates wrote of torture in the Bell Tower records, and torture objects used in the 1500s and 1600s are now in the Royal Arm­ouries Collection.

By the 1500s Henry VII abandoned his Tower Palace home after losing his firstborn son. His most lasting contribution was founding the Tower Yeo­men of the Guard, direct ancestors of today’s Yeoman Warders/beefeaters.

Yeomen of the Guard

guarded the tower interior, including the crown jewels

Then the site became a notorious prison. Among the Tower’s most famous prisoners were those gaoled by nasty King Henry VIII. When Henry sought to divorce Cather­ine of Aragon and separate from the Cath­olic Church, Thomas More wouldn’t acknowled­ge the king as supreme head of the Church of England. More was dismiss­ed, gaoled in the Tower, convicted of treason and executed.

2 of Henry’s wives went to the Tower. Anne Boleyn gave him one daug­h­t­er (later Elizabeth I) but no sons, so Anne was arrested for treason & executed in 1536. Henry’s 5th wife, Catherine Howard, was arrested & executed for adultery.

Inevitably the Catholics and Protestants continued to battle. Young King Ed­ward VI, who’d been raised a Prot­es­tant, created his Device for the Succ­es­sion (1553), dis­inheriting his Catholic half-sister Mary and his Prot­estant half-sister Elizabeth. Instead his crown passed through his aunt’s line to her Prot­estant granddaughter Jane Grey. But noone told Jane, so only three days after Edward’s death in 1553 she reluct­antly became queen. Queen Jane quickly lost the support of her entire Privy Council; in 1553 the Catholic Mary was formally declared by Parl­iament as the next mon­ar­ch. And although Queen Mary was rel­uc­t­ant to sign Jane’s death warrant, Jane’s trial and execution quickly followed.

 (ex Queen) Jane Grey was executed, 1553

Historic UK

Queen Mary’s fears about usurpers continued. She gaoled her younger half sister, Princess Elizabeth-whom Mary believed had masterminded the plots. So in 1554, 20-year-old Eliz­a­b­eth was also kept under house arrest in the Tower, living as her mother Anne Boleyn had. Still, finding no evidence of treason, Mary moved Elizabeth from the Tower to house-arrest elsewhere.

Mary died in Nov 1558, and Elizabeth took the throne. The new queen con­tinued to use the Tower to hold enemies of the crown, as her succ­ess­ors did. From Walter Raleigh to Guy Fawkes, infamous prisoners and deaths at the Tower maintained its notorious reputation. Even Samuel Pepys was ac­cus­ed of complic­ity in the Popish Plot, selling naval secrets to France and piracy. He was imprisoned in the Tower in 1679 and eventual­ly disch­arged, but was later re-gaoled for plotting to restore exiled King James.

The Tower also stored chancery records, relating to diplomatic corr­es­­p­on­dence and government­ decisions, plus pr­operty ownership docu­m­ents and tax­at­ion. The Records Office was in the Wake­field Tower, the largest in the Tower of London complex, where it remained un­til 1858. Only then did the Public Records Office move to Chancery Lane.

Now the blood has been cleaned up, the Tower is London’s most famous tourist site. Admire the Crown Jewels, including the coron­ation reg­a­lia worn at a new monarch’s investiture, and the cerem­on­ial regalia worn at the State Op­ening of Parliament. St Edward’s Crown is a C17th replace­ment for Saxon King Edward the Confessor’s crown.

Crown jewels

British Heritage