From our point of view there remains just one more thing to consider, and that is the Tower’s connection with the River. Probably few of us, as we try to think back through the centuries, realize how important the Thames was even as a highway. We know from our reading that London’s streets were narrow, crooked, and of very little use for a big amount of traffic; yet we do not see in our mind’s eye the great waterway which everybody, rich and poor, used in those days, alike for business and pleasure. And, of course, the Tower contributed very largely to this water traffic, for the King, his nobles, and all who had business at Westminster, travelled constantly to and fro in the great painted barges which made the River a gayer and brighter place than it is in our days. For the purpose of such travellers there was provided the Queen’s Steps at the Tower Wharf, in order to avoid the use of the sinister Traitor’s Gate—that low, frowning archway, which gave entrance from the River, and through which very many famous persons, innocent and guilty alike, passed to their doom, brought thither by water at the behest of the Sovereign. [Illustration: TRAITOR’S GATE.] According to John Stow, who wrote in Elizabeth’s reign, the Tower was then “a citadel to defend or command the city; a royal palace for assemblies or treaties; a prison of state for the most dangerous offenders; the only place of coinage for all England at this time; the armoury for warlike provision; the treasury of the ornaments and jewels of the Crown; and general conserver of most records of the King’s courts of justice at Westminster.” All that is changed now. The Tower has long since ceased to be a Royal residence. As a defence of the city it would not last more than a few minutes against modern artillery. Save for the period of the great war, when it held the bodies of numerous spies and traitors and saw the execution of several, it has for many years given up its claim to be a prison. The records which filled the little Chapel of St. John have now been moved to the Record Office, and the making of money goes on at the Mint just across the road. The Crown Jewels still find a home here, in the Wakefield Tower, the prison where Henry VI. came to his violent end. Yet, despite all these changes, the fortress is still the Tower of London—perhaps the city’s most fascinating relic. CHAPTER EIGHT _How Fire destroyed what the River had made_ Leaving the Tower by the Byward Gate, and passing along Great Tower Street and Eastcheap, we come to the spot “Where London’s column pointing to the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies.”