Of all this display of arms and armour in the Tower, of which I have but touched upon the chief objects of historical and artistic interest, the “processional” axe is, to my mind, by far the most interesting in regard to the Tower and its history, for it is the outward and visible sign of the part the “great axe,” as Shakespeare called it, has played in our country’s history, the symbol of its highest justice, whether it appeared with its edge turned towards or turned away from the prisoner: and what scenes in English history has not that steel reflected in its impassive surface. This axe is in itself an epitome of the history of the Tower, and consequently of England. [Illustration: _Horse and Foot Armour (XVIIᵗʰ. Century.)_] Beneath the western wall of the White Tower is a varied park of artillery. Here, placed side by side, are cannon taken from out the wreck the _Mary Rose_, a warship lost off Spithead in 1545, with others from the _Royal George_, which sank in the same place in 1782. Here is a Portuguese cannon made in 1594 and taken at the siege of Hyderabad in 1843; and guns made for Napoleon at Avignon, with the crowned N engraved upon them. What is curious amongst the old English cannon of the sixteenth century, is their being made of iron bars welded together and bound round with iron hoops. One of these belonged to the _Mary Rose_, and still holds within its barrel a stone shot. Here is also a breech-loading cannon made early in the sixteenth century, and two triple brass guns made for Louis XIV. bearing his device of the sun and the motto, “Ultima ratio regum.” The old French and English mortars are also of interest, the earliest of the latter being dated 1686; one was used by William III. at the siege of Namur in 1695. There is a French mortar made by Keller, Louis’s gun-founder at Douai, in 1683. In 1708 there were sixty-two guns on Tower Green and the river wharf: the latter were fired on festivals; they are now used for saluting from “Salutation Battery,” which faces Tower Hill. Amongst these weapons of destruction one is almost certain to find a pair of venerable ravens hopping about; they are a pair of weird and eerie fowls, and one might imagine the spirit of some guilty wretch had been re-incarnated under their black feathers.