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)
Hatton, however, describes Tower Hill in the reign of Queen Anne as “a
spacious place extending round the west and north parts of the Tower,
where there are many good new buildings, mostly inhabited by gentry and
merchants.”
The Sheriffs of London and Middlesex were responsible for State
prisoners so long as they were within the City and county boundaries,
and when such prisoners were taken through the streets of London from
the Tower, the Sheriffs received them from the Lieutenant of the Tower
at the entrance to the City, and gave a receipt for their persons.
The City officials, too, were responsible for the scaffold on Tower
Hill, but in the reign of Edward IV. this scaffold was erected at
the charge of the King’s officers. Constant quarrels and disputes,
however, arose on the subject of the boundaries between the City and
the Lieutenant of the Tower, until the charge of Tower Hill was finally
vested in the City. In the view of the Tower and its surroundings, to
which I have so often referred, made by Haiward and Gascoyne in 1597,
the scaffold is shown standing some distance to the north of Tower
Street: its site is now a pleasant garden, the place of execution being
recorded by an inscription on a tablet placed on the grass plot within
the railings.
Tower Hill is almost entirely associated with the shedding of blood,
with the masked executioner, his block and axe, and has little
historical interest besides, save that Lady Raleigh lodged in a house
on the Hill with the child born to her in the Tower, after James I.
refused to allow her to share her husband’s imprisonment. William Penn,
the Quaker, and founder of Pennsylvania—which he mortgaged for £6600
in his old age—was born on Tower Hill in 1644; Otway the poet died at
the Bull public-house, it is supposed of starvation; and it was at a
cutler’s shop on Tower Hill that Felton bought the knife with which he
mortally stabbed George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, at Portsmouth.
STAINED GLASS IN THE TOWER
Of all the richly coloured windows placed in the chapel of St John in
the White Tower by Henry III. and the brilliant glass in the church of
St Peter ad Vincula, very little now remains, and the only coloured
glass to be found in the Tower at the present day, as it was originally
placed, is in the window of a little room used as the library for
the Tower warders close to the Byward Tower—this room in one respect
resembles the most famous library in the world, that of the Vatican,
from the fact that no books are visible, they being all put away in
cupboards—and this consists only of two royal badges in coloured glass.
These royal arms appear to be of the time of James I., and although
they have been much restored, that containing the three feathers of the
Prince of Wales retains much of its old glaze and is a good example of
emblazoned glass of the period. It may possibly have been intended for
the cognisance of Prince Henry, or Charles I., when Prince of Wales.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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