The reign of Henry VIII forms an epoch in the history of the Tower. There are tragical events in plenty, but there are other notes on which it is pleasant and interesting to dwell. He began his reign by imprisoning Empson and Dudley, who had been his father’s instruments of extortion. He did so because he knew how they were hated by the nation, though he profited by their misdeeds, for Henry VII bequeathed him what was then the enormous sum of £1,850,000. Next year they were both beheaded on Tower Hill. Meanwhile the King was holding high festival to celebrate his marriage with his brother’s widow Katharine. He was now nineteen years old, and she twenty-five. Surrounded by a splendid retinue he created four and twenty Knights of the Bath, after which there was a gorgeous procession from the Tower to Westminster; the details are given at length, and dismal enough they are when one sees the hollowness of them all in what followed. Henry was bent on improving the Tower buildings, and appointed Commissioners to take the work in hand. In the S.W. corner a Lieutenant’s house was built with many chambers, having a free passage both into the Beauchamp and Garden Towers. This house was flanked by two smaller buildings, warders’ houses, one on the West, the other on the South. The Bell Tower part of this building had a stone vault pierced for archers, who from it could sweep the outer works. This is called in old records the Strong Room. Though not intended for the reception of prisoners, it presently received an illustrious one, as we shall see. In the State Papers of the reign are the following memoranda of repairs done in the Tower during the summer of 1532: “Work done by carpenters and taking down old timber, etc., at St. Thomas’ Tower, and for alterations in the palace.” “There has also been taken down the old timber in the four turrets of the White Tower; and the old timber of Robert the Devil’s Tower—that is Julius Caesar’s tower; and of the tower near the King’s wardrobe. Half of the White Tower is now embattled, coped, indented, and cressed with Caen stone to the extent of 500 feet.” The cost is given as £3,593 14_s._ 10_d._ [Illustration: A TOURNAMENT. _From a MS. of the Romance of the Sire Jehan de Saintré._ _British Museum, Nero D._ IX.]