| Wales, mentions how his father broke his neck in attempting to | | escape from what he calls “Julius Cæsar’s Tower.” Decker and | | Webster refer to the fortress in their “Famous History of Sir | | Thomas Wyatt,” and to Guildford Dudley and Jane Grey; Heywood, in | | his tragedy of “Edward IV.,” recounts the murders of Clarence and | | the sons of Edward, and refers to Queen Elizabeth’s imprisonment | | in the Tower in his “History of Queen Elizabeth.” There are also | | allusions to the Tower and to Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and to Sir | | John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, in the “Doubtful Plays.” The above | | information I have obtained from that rare scholar and critic, | | Dr Furnival. Probably scattered about the country are many other | | inscriptions recording the connection with the Tower of the dead, | | commemorated as was Sir Edward Walsingham on his tomb by his son | | Sir Thomas, in the church of St Nicholas at Chislehurst in Kent: | | | | “A knight, sometime of worthie fame, | | Lyeth buried under this stonie bower; | | Sir Edmund Walsingham was his name, | | Lieutenant he was of London Tower.” | | | | [3] In a series of fac-simile letters of illustrious personages | | published by John Thorne in 1793, is the following from Strafford | | to his wife. It is dated from the Tower the 4th February 1640—but | | this date is evidently a mistake, and 1641 must be the year:— | | | | “Sweet Harte,” he writes, “it is long since I writt unto you, for | | I am here in such trouble as gives me little or noe respett. The | | Charges now cum in, and I am now able, prayse God, to tell you, | | that I conceave there is nothing Capitall, and for the rest I | | knowe at the worste his Ma.ty will pardon all without hurting my | | fortune, and then we shall be happy by God’s grace. Therefore, | | comfortt your self, for I trust these cloudes will pass away, | | and that we shall have faire weather afterwardes. Farewell.—Your | | loving husband, | | STRAFFORD.” | | | | [4] Sir Isaac Pennington was a fishmonger, and elected Alderman | | of the Ward of Bridge Without, January 29th, 1638; and became | | Lord Mayor, 1641–42. He was one of the Commissioners who sat upon | | the trial of Charles I., for which he was condemned to death at | | the Restoration, but was not executed. He was sent to the Tower | | August 25th, 1660, where he died on the 17th of the following | | December.