The Tower of London, (Vol. 1 of 2)Gower, Ronald Sutherland, Lord
History
The Tower of London, (Vol. 1 of 2)
Gower, Ronald Sutherland, Lord
Tower of London (London, England)
In the brief speech which he delivered to the people before his death
the unfortunate Duke admitted the justice of his sentence, saying,
“Masters, I have offended the Queen and her laws, and thereby I am
justly condemned to die, and am willing to die, desiring all men to
be obedient; and I pray God that this my death may be an example to
all men, beseeching you all to bear me witness that I die in the faith
of Christ trusting to be saved by his blood only, and by no other
trumpery, the which died for me, and for all men that truly repent and
steadfastly trust in him. And I do repent, desiring you all to pray to
God for me that when you see my head depart from me, you will pray to
God that he may receive my soul.”
Of Suffolk, Bishop Burnet writes; “That but for his weakness he would
have died more pitied, if his practices had not brought his daughter to
her end.”
Although it is probable that Suffolk’s body was buried in St Peter’s
Chapel, his head is believed to be in the Church of the Holy Trinity in
the Minories, a building which is within the ancient liberties of the
Tower. The Duke’s town house was the converted convent of the church
of the nuns of the order of Clares, so called after their foundress
Santa Clara of Assisi. They were known as the “Sorores Minores,”
whence the name of the district—the Minories. This building had been
made over to Suffolk by Edward VI., and the present church of the Holy
Trinity actually stands upon the site of the old convent chapel. This
interesting edifice is now (1899) threatened with destruction, and in a
few years it is extremely probable that the ground upon which it stands
will be covered with warehouses or buildings connected with the London
and North-Western Railway.
The head was found half-a-century ago in a small vault near the altar,
and as it had been placed in sawdust made of oakwood, it is quite
mummified, owing to the tannin in the oak. There is the mark of the
blow of a sharp instrument above the place where the head was severed
from the neck, and Sir George Scharf, than whom a better judge of
an historical head whether on canvas or in a mummified state, never
existed, wrote of it thus: “The arched form of the eyebrows and the
aquiline shape of the nose, correspond with the portrait engraved in
Lodge’s series from a picture at Hatfield; a duplicate of which is
in the National Portrait Gallery.” This grim _memento mori_ may some
day find its way to the Tower, where it would be an object of much
interest, although, if Suffolk’s ghost be consulted, it would perhaps
plead for this melancholy relic of frail mortality to be placed in
consecrated ground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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