As we leave the Wakefield Tower we pass down under the archway of the Bloody Tower, and, in going eastwards and turning to the left a few yards farther on, come to the foot of the grassy slope at the top of which stands the great White Tower, tinkered at by Wren, but otherwise, to-day, much as the Conqueror left it. In this now open ground, where has been placed the gun-carriage on which the body of Queen Victoria was carried from Windsor railway station to St. George’s Chapel on that memorable 2nd of February, 1901, rose, in Plantagenet and Tudor days, the Royal Palace in the Tower, and the Hall in which the Courts of Justice sat. The Court of Common Pleas was held in this great hall by the river, a Gothic building, dating, probably, from the reign of Henry III.; the Court of King’s Bench being held in the Lesser Hall “under the east turret of the Keep”--or White Tower. At certain times “the right of public entry” of all citizens to the Tower was insisted on. But a certain ceremonial had to be observed beforehand. The “aldermen and commoners met in Allhallows Barking Church, on Tower Hill, and chose six sage persons to go as a deputation to the Tower, and ask leave to see the King, and demand free access for all people to the courts of law held within the Tower.” It was also “to be granted that no guard should keep watch over them, or close the gates”--a most necessary precaution. Their request being granted by the King “the six messengers returned to Barking Church ... and the Commons then elected three men of standing to act as spokesmen. Great care was taken that no person should go into the royal presence who was in rags or shoeless. Every one was to have his hair cut close and his face newly shaved. Mayor, aldermen, sheriff, cryer, beadles, were all to be clean and neat, and every one was to lay aside his cape and cloak, and put on his coat and surcoat.” _The White Tower or Keep._--This is the very heart and centre of the Tower buildings, and all the lesser towers and connecting walls, making the Inner and Outer Wards, and the broad moat encircling all, are but the means of protection and inviolable security of this ancient keep. Within its rock-like walls a threatened king could live in security. Here were provided the elementary necessaries of life--a storehouse for food, a well to supply fresh water, a great fireplace (in the thickness of the wall), and a place of devotion, all within the walls of this one tower. The doorway by which we enter, after passing the ridiculous ticket-box and unnecessary policeman, was cut through the solid wall in Henry VIII.’s time. At the foot of the stairs giving access, the bones of the murdered Princes were found in a small chest, some ten feet below the ground, during Charles II.’s reign.