As I look from my window day by day across Tower Hill at the noble old buildings lying beyond, and watch them when silhouetted against a morning sky or lit up by the glow of evening sunshine, I often wonder if justice can ever be done to them now that we have no Shakespeare and no Walter Scott. While walking in the garden, wherein is set the stone that records the last execution in 1747 on that blood-stained spot, one cannot but contemplate the possibility of even this solemn place being some day violated by the hands of those who scheme out city “improvements.” Still, one may hope that England in her heart will ponder these things, and will save the Tower and Tower Hill from vandalism; that she will realise more and more as years roll on what a precious heritage she has here--a heritage that was born at her birth, has grown with her growth, and may not be destroyed while she breeds strong sons to guard her treasures. CHAPTER II HISTORICAL SKETCH ’Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays: Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, And one by one back in the Closet lays. OMAR KHAYYAM. The protoplasm from which the present Tower grew was a rude Celtic fort on the river slope of Tower Hill. Then came the Romans and built their London Wall, at the angle of which, commanding the Thames seawards, they also constructed a fortress. A portion of this _Arx Palatina_ can still be seen to the east of the White Tower. But no part of this Roman work remains in the present Tower, though Shakespeare speaks of Julius Cæsar’s Tower in _Richard II._ Tower history, as we know it in any detail, begins with the Conquest. The Conqueror set Gundulf, a well-travelled monk of the monastery of Bec, who had seen many beautiful buildings in the course of his wanderings, to work on the low ground between the hill and the river, and there, on the camping-ground of the Britons and the Romans, arose the White Tower, completed about 1078. Gundulf was not only a builder but an administrator, and the chronicles tell us that, as Bishop of Rochester, where he rebuilt the Cathedral, he was most earnest in the discharge of his episcopal duties.