On the second floor of the White Tower the walls are 13 feet in thickness, the cross walls being 8 feet. On this floor are five openings communicating between the eastern and the western chambers. The latter is 92 feet long by 37 broad; a vaulted passage 2 feet 10 inches wide being constructed in the thickness of the wall. The eastern chamber is 68 feet long and 30 wide. There is a recess in the north wall which communicates with the exterior of the tower by a double flight of stone stairs facing the river front. And it was at the foot of these steps that the bones, supposed to be those of the little Princes, were discovered in the reign of Charles II. They were subsequently taken to Westminster Abbey. The present stairs are modern. An ancient door, 3 feet in width, opens from this chamber on to a short passage, 5 feet in width, cut in the thickness of the wall, which leads to the well staircase communicating with all the floors. Another door in the south wall leads into the crypt of St John’s Chapel, which is 13 feet 6 inches broad by 39 feet in height; at the east end it is apsidal. Near the apse is a passage 2 feet wide which leads into a vaulted cell 8 feet long by 10 wide. This cell has no windows, and when, in former times, the door, which has been removed, was closed, this dismal prison was plunged in total darkness. It has been asserted, without any foundation, that this cell was that in which Raleigh passed his first imprisonment in the Tower. There is not a shadow of proof to corroborate this. It was probably used in the early years of the fortress as a strong-room for the safekeeping of the church treasure. Although no proof exists as to the imprisonment of Raleigh in this black hole, prisoners were confined here in the days of the sanguinary Queen Mary, as is shown by some half-obliterated inscriptions which can still be seen on the sides of the doorway leading from the crypt to the cell. In one of these the following words have been traced—“He that endureth to the ende shall be saved. M. 10. R. Rudston. Dar. Kent. Ano. 1553.” “Be faithful unto deth, and I wil give the a crowne of life.—J. Fane. 1554.” Also the following:—“T. Culpeper of Darford.” These persons were implicated in the Wyatt insurrection. Lord de Ros mentions rather vaguely in his book on the Tower, an inscription which was discovered about 1867 “in the vault of the White Tower,” of which the following is a copy:—“Sacris vestibus indutus dum sacra mysteria servans, captus et in hoc augusto carcere indusus.—R. Fisher.” Until some thirty years ago this crypt was used as an armoury, and here many may remember having seen a figure of Queen Elizabeth, mounted on a wooden steed, in a dress supposed to have been worn by her when she returned thanks at St Paul’s for the destruction of the Armada. (This is now in the lower gallery of the White Tower.)