But another charge had we, I trow. Of all times had this famous fortress of the Tower of London been a place of hold for the King's prisoners. Felons, nor cutpurses, nor wantons suffered we indeed in our precincts, nor gave we the hospitality of dungeons to; but of state prisoners, noblemen and gentlemen in durance for High Treason, or for other offences against the Royal State and Prerogative, had we always a plentiful store. Some of the greatest Barons--the proudest names in England--have pined their lives away within the Tower's inexorable walls. Walls! why there were little dungeons and casemates built in the very thickness of those huge mural stones. In ancient days I have heard that foul deeds were common in the fortress--that princes were done to Death here--notably the two poor Royal infants that the wicked Richard of Gloucester bid his hell-hounds smother and bury at the foot of the stairs in that building which has ever since gone by the name of the Bloody Tower. So, too, I am afraid it is a true bill that Torture was in the bad old days indiscriminately used towards both gentle and simple in some gloomy underground places in this said Tower. I have heard of a Sworn Tormentor and his assistants, whose fiendish task it was to torture poor creatures' souls out of their miserable bodies, and of a Chirurgeon who had to watch lest the agonies used upon 'em should be too much for human endurance, and so, putting 'em out of their misery, rob the headsman of his due, the scaffold of its prey, and the vile mobile that congregate at public executions of their raree show. Of "Scavenger's Daughters," Backs, Thumbscrews, iron boots, and wedges, and other horrible engines of pain, I have heard many dismal tales told; but all had long fallen into disuse before my time. The last persons tortured within the Tower walls were, I believe, Colonel Faux (Guido) and his confederates, for their most abominable Gunpowder Plot, which was to put an end to the Protestant Religion and the illustrious House of Stuart at one fell blow; but happily came to nothing, through the prudence of my Lord Monteagle, and the well-nigh superhuman sagacity of his Majesty King James the First. Guy and his accomplices they tortured horribly; and did not even give 'em the honour of being beheaded on Tower Hall,--they being sent away as common traitors to Old Palace Yard (close to the scene of their desperately meditated but fortunately abortive crime), and there half-hanged, cut down while yet warm, disembowelled, their Hearts and Inwards taken out and burnt by Gregory (that was hangman then, and that, as Gregory Brandon, had a coat-of-arms given him as a gentleman, through a fraud practised upon Garter King), and their mangled bodies--their heads severed--cut into quarters, well coated with pitch, and stuck upon spikes over London Bridge, east Portcullis, Ludgate, Temple Bar, and other places of public resort,