The wonderful collection of historic armour in the imposing "White Tower" is, even to those who are not connoisseurs on the subject, of great interest and beauty. It is true that there are a great many very narrow and steep stone stairs to be climbed; but in the end you are duly rewarded for your trouble. The ancient chapel of St. John, at the top of the winding stairway, is most strikingly picturesque, and especially so on a sunny day, when the light plays among the bare stone columns. This "most perfect Norman chapel in England" is striking in its unadorned severity of style; and the stilted horseshoe arches of its apse are somewhat like those of St. Bartholomew the Great, at Smithfield. The chapel dates from the year 1078, and has been the scene of many royal pageants and lyings-in-state. The Banqueting Hall adjoins it; here are to be seen, among other curiosities, models of the rack and thumbscrew, and the block used for the execution of old Lord Lovat, with Lords Balmerino and Kilmarnock--the last Royalists executed here--in 1745. The hall contains also much armour and many weapons. Above is the "Council Chamber," where King Richard II. abdicated his throne in favour of his cousin Henry Bolingbroke. "I think men must really have got bigger since these old days," remarked a burly policeman, to whom I was communicating my impressions: "Now, you wouldn't think it, but there's only two suits of armour in the whole place that I could even manage to get on me, that's old Henry VIII.'s, and his brother-in-law what's beside 'im, Charles Brandon, Dook o' Suffolk--you see 'em? over there, in the middle. Not but what they must have been strong too, of their size, to bear all that there weight of steel on 'em. I'd be sorry to do it myself, I know that. It's a wonder they didn't faint, and their poor horses, too!" One of the most beautiful pieces of armour in the collection is that made for Henry VIII. on his marriage with Katharine of Arragon. It is of German manufacture, with deep and heavy skirts, on the edge of which is a pierced border, with the initials "H" and "K" entwined in a true-love knot. This suit of armour is, further, adorned with elaborate designs, probably from Hans Burgmair or one of his school, from the lives of St. George and St. Barbara, patron saints of England and of armourers. In Stuart times the suits of mail, and armour generally, became less heavy; and vizors and breastplates are often of open-work; most picturesque of all, perhaps, is the dress of the link-bearers of Charles I.'s time. The armour, and arms generally, are kept in a fine state of polish, wonderful to see in a land of fog and river mist. "The soldiers, you see, they have a turn at the spears and things when they want a job; but, of course, the armour, and such as that, is left to two or three people's special business."