The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, April 1885Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Philosophy
The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, April 1885
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
One is glad to leave this chamber of horrors and go above into St.
John’s Chapel, which is considered one of the finest specimens of Norman
architecture left in the kingdom. It terminates in a semi-circle, and
the twelve enormous pillars are arranged in similar fashion. These
pillars are united by arches which admit the light into the nave from
the windows. In the reign of Henry III. three immense windows of stained
glass were added to the chapel. It is not known at what time or from what
cause it ceased to be used for religious purposes. A large room directly
above, on the third floor, was used as a council chamber by the kings,
when they held their court in the Tower. It was in this room that the
infamous Richard, Duke of Gloucester, ordered Lord Hastings to instant
execution in front of St. Peter’s Chapel.
This room is now used as a depository for small arms, and the arrangement
of weapons in the form of various flowers is wonderful and artistic, the
entire ceiling being covered by curious and intricate combinations of
these arms.
Encircling the great White Tower, as has been said, is a row of twelve
smaller towers. Perhaps the one first in interest is that directly
opposite the Traitor’s Gate, and rightly named, known as the Bloody
Tower. It is rectangular in form, being the only one of that shape in the
inner ward. It closely joins Record or Wakefield Tower on the west. Its
grand gateway was built in the reign of Edward III., and is the entrance
proper to the inner ward. The massive portcullis gives signs of immense
age. It was in this tower in 1483, that the most infamous order of the
hateful Gloucester, the murder of the innocent princes, the children of
Edward IV., was consummated.
“The tyrannous and bloody act is done—
The most arch deed of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of.”
The little victims are supposed to have been buried at the foot of the
staircase in the White Tower, but a strange mystery surrounds their fate.
Joining Bloody Tower is the tower next in size to the Great or White
Tower, known as the Record Tower, from its having been for many centuries
the depository for the records of the nation, and Wakefield Tower, from
the imprisonment there of the Yorkists, after the victory of Margaret of
Anjou, the Amazonian queen of the good but weak Henry VI., at Wakefield,
in 1460. This victory gave the House of Lancaster the ascendency for
a short time. The next year the Yorkists were successful, Henry was
remanded to the tower, and was soon after found dead, murdered by
Gloucester’s command, it is supposed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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