suit of unpolished armour, are things which will be shewn, if the
stranger make himself agreeable to the warder.
Quitting this gallery, we enter Queen Elizabeth's Armoury by a
staircase, passing by two carved figures called "Gin and Beer," which
were brought from the old palace of Greenwich, probably at the time of
its destruction. We are again in the White Tower, and tread the very
rooms in which Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned, for no doubt he had
the privilege of stepping beyond what is called his sleeping-room. In
the recessed arch at the end of this groined and vaulted apartment,
stands the equestrian figure of Queen Elizabeth, in a similar costume to
what she wore when she rode to St. Paul's to return thanks for the
destruction of the Spanish Armada. It would but make a dry catalogue
were we to enumerate the whole of the miscellaneous articles in this
Armoury, which consist of shields, swords, bows, blocks, instruments of
torture, partisans, poles, match-locks, &c. &c., all hanging on the
walls, or standing upright, or huddled together like old iron in a
marine-store. There, however, is the axe with which Lady Jane Grey is
supposed to have been beheaded, nor can we in a more fitting place,
while the mind is filled with horror, which this "heading-axe" and block
(the latter comparatively new) call up, describe her execution, which we
copy from a work edited by J. G. Nichols, Esq., F.R.S., entitled the
_Chronicle of Queen Jane_, and another scarce pamphlet, called _The Ende
of Lady Jane Dudley_. The heroic spirit she displayed at her execution
was long the talk in the streets of old London, when Queen Mary ascended
her sanguinary throne.
"By this tyme was ther a scaffolde made apon the grene over agaynst the
White Tower, for the saide lady Jane to die apon. Who, with hir husband,
was appoynted to have ben put to deathe the fryday before, but was
staied tyll then, for what cause is not knowen, unlesse yt were because
hir father was not then come into the Tower. The saide ladye being
nothing at all abashed, (neither with feare of her owne deathe, which
then approached, neither with the sight of the ded carcase of hir
husbande, when he was brought in to the chappell,) came forthe, the
levetenaunt leding hir, in the same gown wherin she was arrayned, hir
countenance nothing abashed, neither hir eyes enything moysted with
teares, although her ij. gentylwomen, mistress Elizabeth Tylney and
mistress Eleyn, wonderfully wept, with her booke in hir hand, wheron she
praied all the way till she cam to the saide scaffolde, wheron when she
was mounted, &c."
From the last-named pamphlet the narrative is continued as follows: