The Tower of London :: CHAPTER VI THE STUARTS

CHAPTER VI THE STUARTS

James I, arrival at the Tower—Lady Arabella Stuart—George Brooke—Sir Walter Raleigh—His Liberation—Fresh Imprisonment—Execution—The Gunpowder Plot—Sir Thomas Overbury—Carr, Earl of Somerset—Ascendency of Buckingham—Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex—Charles I—His Avoidance of the Tower—Sir John Eliot—Felton, Assassin of Buckingham—Lord Loudoun—Earl of Strafford—Archbishop Laud—Tower passes into power of Parliament when the Civil War begins—Imprisonments under the Commonwealth—Lord Capel—The Restoration—Execution of the Regicides—Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham—Colonel Blood’s Attempt to Steal the Crown—The Mystery of his Pardon—Titus Oates—Lord Stafford—The Rye House Plot—Accession of James II—The Duke of Monmouth—The Seven Bishops—Bevis Skelton—Judge Jeffrey—William and Mary, only one Execution in the Tower all the Reign—But many Prisoners.

When King James arrived from Scotland he took up his residence and held his first Court in the Tower, but the plague was in London and there was no procession to Westminster at his Coronation, though the Londoners had made preparations for it. At the close of the year (1603) a conspiracy to place the crown on the head of Lady Arabella Stuart caused the imprisonment of many eminent men, among them Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham, his brother George Brooke, Thomas, Lord Grey of Wilton, and Sir Walter Raleigh. Lady Arabella was the daughter of Charles Stuart, Earl of Lennox, Darnley’s brother, and was therefore King James’s first cousin; she was also, as we have already had occasion to note, related to the Tudors, and this double relationship was the great misfortune of her life. At the trial of Lord Cobham it was clearly proved that she had no share in the scheme to make her queen. She had had many suitors, Henry IV of France and the Archduke Mathias of Austria among them, but had fallen in love with William Seymour, grandson of the Earl of Hertford, and for this Queen Elizabeth had kept her in close confinement. In 1609 King James heard that she was about to marry some foreign prince; his jealousy was aroused, and he sent her to the Tower, but finding that his fears were groundless, he gave his consent to her marrying one of his subjects. She took him at his word, and married Seymour. In wrath the king sent her to Lambeth Palace as prisoner, and her husband to the Tower. From Lambeth she was ordered to Durham, to be under the Bishop, but at Highgate pleaded illness and remained there, and planned an escape for herself and husband. She obtained a male disguise and got to Blackwall, where her husband was to meet her, he having got out of the Tower by dressing like a labourer and following a cart of firewood. When he reached the appointed meeting-place he found that Arabella had sailed away in a French boat. He could not follow her, as the wind was against him, and he had to go to Ostend. Meanwhile an alarm was raised, Arabella was pursued, caught in mid-strait, and brought back to the Tower, which she never left again until her death, September 25, 1615. She had been for some years insane. She is buried beside Mary Queen of Scots in Westminster Abbey. Her husband survived her for nearly fifty years, and married a second wife, a sister of the famous Parliamentary general, the Earl of Essex, son of Queen Elizabeth’s Essex. In 1660 he became Duke of Somerset, and lived just long enough to welcome Charles II.

But in following Arabella’s fortunes I have greatly anticipated. We must go back to the conspiracy. George Brooke and two priests were the first to be tried and executed. His brother, Lord Cobham, and Lord Grey de Wilton were also condemned and actually brought out to be executed, but a respite had been previously signed, and it was produced at the block in a coup de thÉÂtre. They were sent back to their prison, and for fifteen years longer Cobham lay in confinement. Then, his health failing, he was allowed to visit Bath in the custody of gaolers, after which he returned to his prison. Whether he died in the Tower or was allowed, as some accounts imply, to retire to an obscure house in the Minories, is uncertain. He died in January, 1619. There was much underhand dealing about his estates and those of his brother, by which Cecil gained possession of the greater part of them; and this entered into the soul of William Brooke, George’s son, who became one of the most determined foes of Charles I, and died fighting against him at Newbury. Lord Grey of Wilton, a brilliant young man who might have served his country well, languished in the Brick Tower till his death in 1617.

Again disregarding contemporary events for awhile, we take up the history of Sir Walter Raleigh. He was detained for twelve years, mostly in the Bloody Tower, in rooms not uncomfortably furnished, was allowed two servants, and his wife and son could visit him. He had also the liberty of the garden which lay between his prison and the lieutenant’s house, and in it he constructed a little room for chemical experiments. And during this time he wrote his History of the World. In conception it was a colossal book, but he only completed his plan as far as the end of the second Macedonian war. It is a torso, one of the most wonderful books in literature, a great folio, very scarce; in fact, hardly ever to be seen except in old libraries, but full of learning, wit, shrewdness, when you get the opportunity of perusing it. In the early days of his captivity Sir George Harvey was lieutenant of the Tower. They were personal friends, and Raleigh often spent the evening with him. But when Harvey was succeeded by Sir William Wade things were changed. The new lieutenant had a personal dislike to Raleigh, and seems to have taken much trouble to curtail his privileges and make his life irksome. Henry, Prince of Wales, was partial to him, and frequently visited him, and the queen is said to have entreated the king to set him free. But James personally disliked him; partly, it is said, because he had heard that Raleigh made jests on his ugly face and uncouth gestures and accent. But, further, he was hated by Spain for his labours to make the English fleet the most powerful on the seas, to extend the English colonial possessions, and destroy the Spanish supremacy; and the Spanish ambassador, Gondomar, was the most powerful minister at the English court. Prince Henry died in 1612, a heavy loss to Raleigh, but he got his liberty in 1616 by bribing Villiers, who went to the king and roused his cupidity by explaining that if Raleigh were allowed to make a fresh expedition to the West Indies he might gather great spoils, the lion’s share of which would go to the king. And so the warrant for his liberation was signed in March, 1616, at the time when Shakespeare was dying at Stratford-on-Avon. The wretched king at the same time not only gave a pledge to Gondomar that if Raleigh touched any Spanish person or property he would hand him over to the Spanish Government to be hanged at Seville, but also showed him a private letter of Raleigh, stating the exact number of his ships and men, as well as the spot on the banks of the Orinoco where he expected to find a great silver mine. As the Spaniards claimed the whole of that territory, the vileness of the treachery becomes apparent. He started from Plymouth in March, 1617, with fourteen ships and nine hundred men. Continual disaster is the summary of the expedition. His eldest son was killed fighting gallantly in Guiana. In August, 1618, he returned a ruined man, and was again lodged in the Tower. The king was burning to get rid of him, but what should the pretext be? The Council of State was in uttermost perplexity. Bacon advised acting on the former sentence. Raleigh pleaded that the commission sending him to America was a reversal of that sentence both in law and reason, but the Lord Chief Justice Montagu gave his judicial opinion that it held good, and so on October 24 the warrant was signed, and on the 29th he was beheaded in Old Palace Yard.

Again we have to retrace our steps. In 1604 the penal laws against the Roman Catholics were re-enacted. On November 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes was seized in the vaults of the Houses of Parliament and conveyed to the Tower, as were also Thomas and Robert Winter, Robert Keyes, Thomas Oates, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, and Sir Everard Digby. They were placed in the dungeons beneath the White Tower. The room is still shown in the King’s House in which Guy was brought before the Council of State. And, moreover, in the subterranean dungeon are the bases of the rack on which he was tortured He is said to have been kept in “Little Ease” for fifty days. He was put to death, along with Thomas Winter, Rookwood and Keyes, in Old Palace Yard on January 31, 1606. Digby, Rookwood and Keyes suffered the same horrible death in Old Palace Yard.

But there were other persons who were implicated and brought in prisoners, of whom some account must be given, among them Henry Percy, the aged Earl of Northumberland, Lords Mordaunt and Stourton, and three Jesuit priests, Garnet, Oldcorne, and Gerard. Northumberland had to pay an enormous fine and remained a prisoner here for sixteen years; Mordaunt and Stourton were also heavily fined and kept in durance. Fathers Garnet and Oldcorne were put to death in the usual horrible manner, one in St. Paul’s Churchyard, the other at Worcester. With Gerard it was different. He was questioned in the King’s House about Garnet’s knowledge of the plot and refused to answer, whereupon he was taken into the subterranean chamber and hung up by his wrists, he being a heavy man. In this position he was pressed with questions for an hour, and several times fainted. When he still refused to open his mouth Wade, the lieutenant, cried out in a rage, “Hang there, then, till you rot.” However, when the tolling from the Bell Tower gave notice to the Commissioners to quit the fortress for the day, the poor priest was suffered to crawl to his prison room at the top of the Salt Tower. Next day the same torture was renewed, and when he fainted he was restored by having vinegar poured down his throat. It was of no use, and he was again carried back to his prison, where he lay fifty days. Another Roman Catholic named Arden was confined in the Cradle Tower, some hundred feet off; they could see one another, and could even exchange a few words across the Privy Garden. Gerard persuaded his gaoler to let Arden visit him, and they planned an escape. They wrote a letter with orange juice, which is invisible until it is subjected to a process known to the initiated, and got it sent to co-religionists outside, who came opposite with a boat, and to them the prisoners threw a thin cord across the moat by means of a leaden weight attached to it. The boatmen fastened a stout rope to this, and it was hauled up and made fast within the chamber, and down it the two men “swarmed,” though Gerard was in agony from his swollen arms. But they succeeded and got away safely, Gerard to Rome, where he wrote a full account of his trial and escape.

We pass on to one of the foulest records in the history of our great fortress. Thomas Overbury, the son of a judge, was sent by his father “on a voyage of pleasure” to Edinburgh in 1601, and there made acquaintance, which ripened into intimate friendship, with one Robert Carr, page to the Earl of Dunbar. On the accession of King James to the English throne he showed Carr great favour, and brought him to London. Carr, conscious of his own defective education and training, leaned much on Overbury’s ability, who thus to some extent shared his prosperity and was knighted in 1608. Carr was made Earl of Rochester in 1610. Their intimacy continued so close that men about court cringed to Overbury with a view to gaining Rochester’s favour, but now came a bitter feud. Rochester involved himself in a liaison with the Countess of Essex, a woman of altogether abandoned character, and she obtained a divorce with a view of marrying Rochester. But against this marriage Overbury raised an indignant protest, and entreated his friend to abandon the idea. Rochester resented his interference, and the countess in wrath excited him to retaliate. Rochester hesitated—probably Overbury was in possession of secrets which it was not desirable to bring out—and tried to persuade him to accept a diplomatic appointment abroad. He steadily refused all offers, and the Earl of Northampton, the countess’s uncle, who was keen for the match, persuaded the king, who was already prejudiced against Overbury, to send him to the Tower, on a charge of having spoken disrespectfully of the queen. Rochester regarded this imprisonment as a temporary expedient only; but far other was the idea of the countess. After making one or two proposals to officers to assassinate Overbury, she procured the dismissal of Wade from the governorship, and put in a tool of her own, Sir Gervase Helwys, by whose management the wretched captive was slowly and skilfully poisoned, September 15, 1613, three months and seventeen days after his first committal. A few weeks later Rochester was created Earl of Somerset. Nearly two years later a boy in the employment of one of the apothecaries revealed the crime. Investigations were made and proofs were abundantly forthcoming. Helwys and the attendants were hanged. The Earl of Northampton, it was clearly proved, had been an accomplice, but he had died. The Earl and Countess of Somerset were arrested, tried and convicted in May, 1616, but were pardoned and released from the Tower in 1621. Public opinion was much outraged; there were demonstrations in the streets, and it was even broadly intimated that King James must have been privy to the murder. There was a tradition that Mrs. Turner, one of the principal agents employed in this crime by Lady Essex, appeared at her trial in a stiffened ruff which was all the fashion, and which we constantly see in portraits of that time, and in the same decoration was hanged (March, 1615), the result being that these ruffs immediately went out of fashion.

There were other occupants of the Tower during the reign of James I, and the records are miserable enough; intrigues and plots among rival aspirants to power frequently ended in imprisonment of the defeated. The rise of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, is undoubtedly a notable fact of the ignoble reign, but can only be touched upon here as connected with the imprisonment of Sir John Eliot, Sir Edward Coke, and Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex. Cranfield, a creation of Buckingham, was one of the foremost accusers of Bacon for corrupt practices. He had been made Master of the Wardrobe and Lord High Treasurer. He was convicted of robbing the magazine of arms, of pocketing bribes and selling offices, and of making false entries of the royal debts. He was condemned to pay a fine of £50,000, and to be imprisoned for life. He was released, however, in a few weeks, lived in retirement for the rest of his life, and remained neutral during the Civil War. He died in 1645. Two sons in succession succeeded him, after which the family became extinct.

The schemes and intrigues concerning the proposed marriage of Charles with the Infanta of Spain and the tortuous policy of the Duke of Buckingham have not come within our scope. But it has to be noted that Sir John Eliot, who had by reason of his great ability been appointed Vice-Admiral of Devon, had got into trouble during Buckingham’s absence in Spain, by arresting a notorious pirate named Nutt, who was under the secret patronage of Calvert, the Secretary of State, and Eliot was sent to prison on false charges. He was liberated after some months and got a seat in Parliament in 1624, where he almost immediately displayed remarkable power of oratory. Buckingham had now broken with Spain, and in this Eliot heartily went with him, but his feeling was altogether based upon the rights of the House of Commons and the popular feeling against any Spanish alliance. He was one of the leaders also of the impeachment of the Earl of Middlesex. Soon there appeared serious signs of his divergence from the king’s policy. He was no Puritan, having a strong antipathy to Calvinism; but he urged enforcement of the recusancy laws against the Roman Catholics, because religion “made distractions among men.” As Mr. Gardiner puts it, his creed was “the monarchy of man.... There must be unity and purity of faith, and that faith must be one which brought man face to face with his Maker” (vol. v., p. 343). In those same early days he was in conflict with another man who was to become one of the most prominent politicians of his day—Thomas Wentworth, presently Lord Strafford. Wentworth too, according to his light, was a patriot. He was sincerely desirous for the prosperity of the country, but held that strength is the essence of good government, had a contempt for constitutional forms, and in his arrogance, knowing his own good intentions, paid no respect to those who opposed him. Eliot stood at the opposite pole. Parliament was to him the voice and the majesty of the nation. He earnestly and strenuously opposed the entrance of Wentworth into the House of Commons, on the ground that his election had been a forced one and was a sham: and he carried his point.

Further alienation followed. Buckingham’s war with Spain was a failure. Eliot, after some hesitation on account of old friendship, spoke bitterly against him in King Charles’ first Parliament of 1626; an impeachment followed, of which Eliot was one of the managers, and for this the king sent him and Sir Dudley Digges to the Tower. But the cleavage between king and parliament had grown serious; the Commons refused to proceed to business until their members were freed, and it was done, but he was dismissed from offices which he held. The third parliament met in 1628, and again Eliot spoke against Buckingham and against arbitrary taxation, and it was mainly by his energy that the Petition of Right was carried. Next year Buckingham was murdered by Felton. Eliot next directed his energies against Archbishop Laud, who had expressed his intention of raising Church ceremonial, and excluding Puritan teachers from office in the Church, and thus, according to Eliot, of making war upon the religious convictions of the nation. In the midst of an angry debate the king prorogued parliament, Eliot was again sent to the Tower, and parliament was dissolved (March 10, 1629). When examined as to his conduct he refused to answer, on the ground that it would be yielding up the privilege of parliament. The Crown lawyers had much difficulty in meeting this contention, but they managed to secure his conviction in the Court of King’s Bench, on the ground that he had calumniated the minister of the Crown, and he was fined £2,000. A word of acknowledgment from him that he had been in the wrong would have procured his liberty, but he would not speak it, for to surrender the privileges of parliament would have been in his eyes to betray the liberties of the nation. So he lay in prison writing the treatise which he called The Monarchy of Man, which had a profound effect on public opinion and the change in the balance of forces. He showed signs of consumption, and petitioned for leave to go into the country to recruit his health. But it was refused, and he died November 27, 1632. His family petitioned that he might be buried with his ancestors, but this also was refused, and he was laid in St. Peter’s chapel.

It was convenient to carry on Eliot’s history unbroken, but it is necessary to look back to the assassination of Buckingham. The assassin, Felton, bought his knife at a stall on Tower Hill, went to Portsmouth, and there committed his crime. His motives still remain uncertain. Probably religious fanaticism was one, but private vengeance for supposed injustice as to promotion was another. Buckingham was so unpopular that when Felton was brought down the river to the Tower, blessings and prayers were cried after him by the crowd. He expressed deep penitence, and requested that he might be allowed to wear sackcloth and a halter until the day of his death, and might receive the Communion. He was hanged at Tyburn in December, and his body was hung in chains at Portsmouth.

Lords Spencer and Arundel were shut up in the Tower over a private quarrel. Arundel insulted Spencer by telling him that at no distant time back his ancestors had been tending sheep, to which the retort was, “And at that time yours were plotting treason.”

James I was the last monarch who used the Tower as a royal residence. Charles I did not even rest there on the night preceding his coronation, nor is there any record of his having visited the place during his whole reign.

One line may be given to Mervyn, Lord Audley and Earl of Castlehaven, who was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1631 for a whole series of revolting crimes which probably indicate insanity. But the cells continued to be filled by offenders against the Government, Denzil Holles, Selden, Valentine, Coryton, Sir Miles Hobart, Sir P. Heyman among them. The first-named was brother-in-law of Lord Strafford, and strove to save him, but he took a strong part against the king’s policy, though after the Civil War broke out he opposed Cromwell and the Independents, and after the Restoration he was in the confidence of the king. John Selden was a steady opponent of the king, but after his fall kept entirely clear of politics, and gave himself to his great and valuable legal labours. Lord Loudoun was one of the commissioners sent to England by the Scottish Covenanters, and was committed to the Tower on the charge of treasonable correspondence. Clarendon has a story that the king ordered that he should be executed by virtue of his royal warrant, that the Marquis of Hamilton made his way to the royal presence to remonstrate, and was met with a curt refusal to listen. “Let the warrant be obeyed,” said the king, whereupon Hamilton said, “Then I shall start posthaste for Scotland to-morrow morning, for the whole city will be in an uproar, and I will show that I had no hand in it.” Thereupon Charles gave way, and soon after Loudoun was released. But the truth of this story has been questioned. He afterwards showed a genuine desire to reconcile the king with the Presbyterians, and was present at the coronation of Charles II at Scone in 1650.

But we come now to the two most prominent prisoners of King Charles’s time. On November 11, 1640, the Earl of Strafford was at Whitehall making proposals for the impeachment of the parliamentary leaders for treason. At the same moment Pym was impeaching Strafford in the House of Commons. The earl heard of this, and hastened to the House to defend himself, but was not allowed to speak, and was carried off to the Tower. So was Archbishop Laud. In January Strafford was brought to trial in Westminster Hall, and defended himself with superb eloquence. “Never any man,” says the Puritan chronicler Whitelock, “acted his part on such a theatre with greater reason, constancy, judgment and temper, and with better grace in all his words and gestures.” But he was condemned to die. The king was eager to save him, and there was at one moment a possibility of it. Charles had made overtures for a ministry composed of the popular leaders, in which Pym was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer and Holles Secretary of State. But meanwhile he was planning to bring up the army from the North, discontented as it was by want of pay, to seize the Tower and free Strafford. He also reckoned on support from the Scotch, who were divided into opposing parties. But Pym became aware of his double dealing, a peremptory message was sent to him by the House of Commons for the death warrant, and Charles signed it. We have all heard how the earl wrote to the king beseeching him not to endanger his crown by opposing the will of the people, and how when he heard of the king’s assent he exclaimed, “Put not your trust in princes.” He was led out to Tower Hill to die on May 12, 1641. On his way he passed the Bloody Tower, in which Laud was imprisoned, and knelt to receive the blessing, which the prelate uttered with uplifted hands.

That was the turning-point in the history, the victory of Parliament over the minister whose theory of government was personal authority. And the same conflict of principles was seen in the case of the Archbishop. He was not brought to trial indeed for some years, for the House of Commons had pressing work on hand and the case was much more complicated. For there were those among the Puritans who loved the Prayer Book with all their hearts, whilst they rejected Laud’s theory of Church government. The prelate had been educated by Buckeridge, president of St. John’s College, Oxford, who had always set his face against Puritanism in the latter days of Elizabeth’s reign, and had laid much stress on sacramental grace and episcopal organization; and Laud had entirely accepted this teaching, and all his life was earnestly attached to the observance of external order. And herein he was supported by an increasing number of theologians hostile to Calvinism. In his early controversial writings he followed the teaching of Hooker, desiring to bring questions not of necessity vital, under duly authorized authority. He became president of his college in 1611, Archdeacon of Huntingdon 1615, Dean of Gloucester 1616, Bishop of St. David’s 1621. But these successive advancements were not so important in his life as the ascendency which he acquired at the accession of Charles I. He had consistently held to his opinions, and now he saw his way, as he thought, to enforce authority as the rule in religion, with uniformity as its natural consequence. In 1626 he was made Bishop of Bath and Wells, in 1628 of London, Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1629, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. It is needless to say that his determination to enforce uniformity was identified by the Presbyterians as of a piece with Strafford’s “thorough.” Of his zeal, his honesty and purity of purpose there is no question, any more than of his holiness of life. But he was blind to the necessity of paying due respect to the convictions of others, and his meaning was misjudged. Thus, when he insisted on placing the Lord’s Table at the east end of every church instead of in the middle, he was accused, quite untruly, of desiring to restore the Roman Catholic faith. He was angry at the charge, and himself incurred the anger of the queen, Henrietta Maria, for repudiating Roman doctrine.

Meanwhile the Civil War broke out (August, 1642), and in London for the time being Puritanism had the upper hand; the Bishops were excluded from Parliament, the Archbishop lay in close confinement in the Bloody Tower. His diary remains to tell us of the hardships he went through. On March 10, 1643, he was brought to trial and charged in general terms with “high treason and other misdemeanours.” The total want of particularity in the articles of accusation, however, prove the irregular nature of the proceedings. Sergeant Wild on the part of the prosecution admitted this, but said that when all the Archbishop’s evil deeds were put together they made many grand treasons. “I crave your mercy,” retorted Laud’s counsel; “I never understood before, Mr. Sergeant, that two hundred couple of black rabbits made a black horse.” The trial lasted for twenty days, with many intervals, but at length he was condemned on the charge that he had “attempted to subvert religion and the fundamental laws of the realm.” He was beheaded on Tower Hill on January 10, 1645, in the seventy-second year of his age, and was buried in the chancel of Allhallows Barking, but the body was removed to St. John’s, Oxford, in 1663.

From the time when Charles unfurled his standard at Nottingham, the Tower, though nominally held in his name, was in the keeping of Parliament, and its prisoners were the king’s supporters. Thus Sir Ralph Hopton, who had voted for Strafford’s attainder and opposed King Charles’s taxation schemes, was sent here “for ten days” by the Parliament because he protested against violent speeches by his fellow members against the king. He afterwards joined the king’s army, and was created Baron Hopton. On the overthrow he retired to Bruges, where he died. He was a sincere patriot, and received earnest assurances from the Puritan leaders of their personal respect for him. Sir John Gayer, Lord Mayor of London, was shut up for publishing the king’s proclamation against the militia; so were three aldermen and a sheriff, Sir John Glynne, Recorder of London, a first-rate lawyer and splendid orator, a supporter of the Solemn League and Covenant, but imprisoned for opposing the ascendency of the army and the intolerance of the Independents; released and re-admitted to parliament, and one of the commissioners appointed to treat with the king at Carisbrooke; but still distrusted; made a speech in favour of monarchy in 1658, made king’s sergeant to Charles II. Two great names are those of John Paulet, fifth Marquis of Winchester (“Old Loyalty”), the celebrated defender of Basing House, and Monk, the future Duke of Albemarle, taken prisoner by Fairfax at the siege of Nantwich, and released from imprisonment on condition that he would fight for them in Ireland, but not in England. Two of his fellow-prisoners who had been fighting by his side, Lord Macquire and Colonel MacMahon, were captured in trying to escape by swimming the moat, and were hanged.

25. The Execution of the Earl of Strafford.

From a contemporary engraving by Hollar.

26. The Seven Bishops taken to the Tower.

From a Dutch etching of the time.
Gardner Collection.

28. The Tower and Old London Bridge.

From an engraving after J. Maurer, 1746.
Gardner Collection.

At the time of the tragedy at Whitehall, January 30, 164-⁸/₉, many of the king’s supporters were prisoners in the Tower, and some of the most illustrious of them shared his fate—the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland, Arthur Lord Capel. A brave old Welsh knight, Sir John Owen, who was also sentenced, made a low bow to the judges, and said they had “done honour to a poor gentleman of Wales to sentence him with such noble fellow-prisoners.” Ireton was so moved with this that he made a speech to the Commons pleading that whereas the rest had advocates to speak for them, plain Sir John Owen had none, and moved that he be pardoned. It was carried, and Sir John went back to Wales and died in peace in 1666. Another Lord Mayor, Sir Abraham Reynardson, was imprisoned and fined because he would not publish the parliamentary ordinance abolishing royalty. After the Restoration he was again Lord Mayor. There is a fine portrait of him in Merchant Taylors Hall. Christopher Love is another prisoner who claims mention. He was a Puritan minister, very eloquent, and attracted large congregations. In his horror at the execution of the king he turned royalist, and was beheaded for plotting for the Restoration. After the battle of Worcester in 1651 a great number of prisoners were brought hither—the Marquis of Worcester, Earls of Crawford, Lauderdale, and Rother; they remained until the Restoration. In July, 1656, a mandate was sent by Cromwell to the Lieutenant of the Tower for the release of Lucy Barlow and her child. She was otherwise named Lucy Walters, and was one of Charles II’s concubines. The child was afterwards Duke of Monmouth. She had been imprisoned for some time. Miles Syndercombe, who had been in Cromwell’s army, and in very intimate friendship with him, took affront at some slight and tried to assassinate him in 1657. He was sentenced to death, but committed suicide, and the body was dragged at a horse’s tail from the Tower to Tyburn, and there buried with a stake driven through it. Dr. John Hewitt was minister of the Church of St. Gregory by St. Paul’s, and Cromwell’s daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, was a regular member of his congregation. It is recorded that the Protector himself frequently joined her. This did not prevent Hewitt from raising forces in Kent and Sussex for the Restoration, and he was beheaded on Tower Hill, though Mrs. Claypole earnestly interceded for him. With him died Sir Henry Slingsby. There were very many others, and even after Cromwell’s death plotters were brought in, among them Henry Mordaunt, brother of the Earl of Peterborough, Lady Mary Howard, the Earl of Chesterfield, Lords Falconbridge, Falkland, De la Ware, Bellasis, Charles Howard and Castleton. They were subsequently released. When Cromwell died, and the nation was yet in uncertainty as to the course of events, the Tower became the object of much attention. There was the army on one side and the Parliamentary party on the other, and the latter arranged with Colonel Fitz, the Lieutenant, that Colonel Okey, with three hundred men, should appear at a given hour and demand and receive admittance. But this was divulged and the army sent Colonel Desborough with a force, which seized the lieutenant, and placed a fresh garrison. This fell to quarrelling, whereupon Lenthall, the speaker, sent another force, which took possession under Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper. Then came General Monk’s grand coup, and he seized the fortress in the name of King Charles.

The Restoration, as was probably inevitable, brought fierce reprisals on those who had been severe and unrelenting. Thomas Harrison had been one of the most eager of the regicides; he had afterwards been strenuous in support of Cromwell for a while, but, as an anabaptist, had become a Fifth Monarchy man, and had been twice sent to the Tower as such. Being released in 1659, he retired to his house in Staffordshire, and in May 1660 was arrested there, was brought to trial in October, drawn on a hurdle to Charing Cross, and there executed (October 13). So were Gregory Clement, a London merchant, Colonel John Jones, Thomas Scot, who had all taken part in the king’s trial. So were Colonels Axtel and Hacker, who had commanded the guard at the trial and at the execution. Sir Harry Vane, who had taken no part in the trial, was charged with having endeavoured to prevent the Restoration, and suffered on that charge. Some escaped, probably with the connivance of the guards. Three who had so escaped, and had reached Holland—Colonels Barkstead and Okey and Miles Corbet—were treacherously brought back and put to death at Tyburn in 1662. Some of the delinquents, e.g. Lord Monson, Sir H. Mildmay, Robert Wallop, were sentenced to be drawn on sledges from the Tower to Tyburn and back with halters round their necks, and then to suffer perpetual imprisonment. In contrast there were grand doings, and certainly not without national enthusiasm, in the coronation procession from the Tower to Westminster.

In the great fire of 1666 the Tower was largely indebted for its escape to the energy of the king, who had the buildings contiguous to the moat and the entrance blown up with gunpowder. Pepys was an eyewitness of this measure, and declares that as the White Tower was the powder magazine, “it would undoubtedly not only have beaten down and destroyed all the bridge, but sunk and torn the vessels in the river, and rendered the demolition beyond expression for several miles about the country.”

There were many committals in the early years of Charles II’s reign, on charges of “seditious practices” and dangerous designs, but few of any abiding interest. Thomas, Lord Buller, of Moor Park, was sent for challenging the Duke of Buckingham, and the Marquis of Dorchester for “using ill language” about the same noble, and in 1667 the duke himself was shut up here, and not for the first nor second time. There is no need here to discuss the character of George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham. Dryden’s character of him as “Zimri” appears to be as true as it is masterly. He was an infant when his father was assassinated, and was brought up with the children of Charles I, and served them after the king’s death, fighting for the younger Charles at Worcester. But in Holland he quarrelled with the queen-mother and Clarendon, returned to England and married Fairfax’s daughter, for which he was sent to the Tower in 1658. Released at the Restoration, he was again admitted to royal favour and was an influential member of the Cabal ministry, but in 1668 seduced the Countess of Shrewsbury, killed her husband in a duel, was consequently treated with coldness by the Duke of York, and joined the Whigs; was again sent to the Tower for intriguing, but apparently his ribald conversation got him into favour again with Charles II, and he was restored to Court favour. From that time he kept out of politics and wrote verses. His clever play, the Rehearsal, holds its place in English literature.

We turn aside a while to record a most daring and sensational crime, namely Colonel Blood’s attempt to carry off the regalia from the Tower. He was a brutal ruffian, said to have been Irish born, half sailor, half highwayman, who had served under Cromwell, and for that reason styled himself Colonel. After the Restoration he became a spy of the Government, and if he could have had his way would have sent some innocent persons to death.

In 1671 Sir Gilbert Talbot held the post of “Master of the Jewel House.” His pay had been lowered, and by way of compensation he was allowed to admit visitors to his treasures and to charge. One day in April, 1671, came an intensely clerical-looking personage to the Martin Tower, with a long cloak, cassock and girdle, accompanied by a woman whom he represented as his wife, who was very anxious to see the regalia. The glorious dazzle made her faint, and the old curator, Talbot Edwards by name, whom Sir Gilbert had placed in charge, called his wife to attend to the sick lady. The restoratives administered were so efficacious that the couple went off overflowing with gratitude and promising to return. And soon the “cleric” came again, bringing a pair of gloves to Mrs. Edwards in return for her kindness to Mrs. Blood. During this visit he announced that he had a nephew just come back from abroad after some prosperous ventures, and that he had set his heart on this nephew marrying Edwards’s daughter, and the negotiations so far advanced that he was invited to bring the nephew to dinner. At dinner he said a long grace with much emotion, and afterwards announced that he should bring two friends next day, who were leaving London, and very anxious to see the crown first. And next day (May 9) they came, all with concealed daggers and pocket pistols, and rapiers hidden in their canes, and directly they were shown into the room Edwards was effectually gagged, enveloped in a thick cloak, and told that if he attempted to give an alarm they would kill him. He could not cry out, but he struggled manfully, and they beat him on the head with a wooden mallet, stabbed him, and left him for dead. Then they turned their attention to their quarry. Blood hid the crown under his cloak, one companion put the orb in his breeches pocket, and another began to file the sceptre in two pieces, as it was too long to carry away without being seen. At this moment advancing steps were heard; Edwards’s son had unexpectedly come back from Flanders, and he heard his father endeavouring to give the alarm. The thieves ran downstairs; young Edwards, accompanied by his brother-in-law, Captain Beckman, who had arrived with him, hurried in pursuit. They had crossed the drawbridge leading to the wharf, Blood firing two pistols as he ran. There were horses waiting for them, but Beckman rushed at him, a fierce struggle followed, in which Blood was worsted and captured, as were his companions. When he dropped the crown some of the gems fell out but were recovered, as was a ruby which was found, having belonged to the sceptre. In fact the treasures were uninjured, but poor Edwards, who was eighty years old, died in a few days. Blood cynically remarked when he was brought a prisoner to the White Tower that “it was a brave attempt, for it was for a crown.”

It is an absolute mystery why Charles II sent for him forthwith, and not only pardoned him, but conferred a pension of £500 a year on him and certain Irish estates. Evelyn, in his diary, expresses his amazement. Some think that Charles, wanting money, had commissioned Blood to steal the treasures and pawn or sell them in Holland, and divide the spoil with him; others suppose that Blood knew some awkward secrets about the king and threatened to reveal them. He often appeared at Court, and returned kindness which the Duke of Buckingham had shown him by a peculiarly atrocious attempt to blackmail him, for which he was fined £10,000. He died in Bowling Street, Westminster, August 24, 1680. His likeness in the National Portrait Gallery quite confirms Evelyn’s description of him, “a villainous unmerciful face, a false countenance.”

Yet even his rascality grows dim beside that of Titus Oates, whose horrible concoction of lies concerning a pretended Popish plot sent nearly forty men to the scaffold. The execution of William Lord Stafford on Tower Hill, December 29, 1680, on the charge sworn to by Oates that he planned to kill the king and place the Duke of York on the throne, was the turning-point in the agitation. When it began Oates was half deified by the excited populace as the deliverer of the country; but as time went on men shook their heads, doubtfully at first, then strongly. Lord Stafford on the scaffold declared his absolute innocence, and the spectators cried out with tears, “We believe your lordship.” Oates had made too rich a harvest to give up his devilish business, but after this he found no more believers. But that there was good reason to expect an endeavour to restore the Roman faith no one doubted. As far back as 1670 the Duke of York had given his adhesion to it, and therefore the “country party,” as it was called, were eager to prevent his accession to the throne. The struggles over the Exclusion Bill need not detain us here; but the failure of that Bill, owing to the “trimming” of some of its chief supporters who loved the favour of royalty, led to a secret project of the earnest Whigs to avert what they held to be a calamity. The leader of this party had been Anthony Ashley, first Earl of Shaftesbury. “Of these the false Ahithophel was first,” wrote Dryden in his great satire. He was joined by Lord William Russell, the Duke of Monmouth, Algernon Sidney, the Earl of Essex, son of Lord Capel, who was beheaded in the early days of the Commonwealth, John Hampden, grandson of the great Parliamentary leader, and Lord Howard. Shaftesbury had been sent to the Tower in 1677 for agitating against the king’s high-handed proceedings against the Corporation of London, but had been released on submission. He now protested against the king holding a Parliament at Oxford and was again lodged in the Tower, but the Whig grand jury threw out the charge. But he soon found that his friends would not take such energetic measures as he called for, so he retired to Holland, where he soon died. His companions formed new projects of insurrection, but could not agree; Sidney and Lord Essex were for a Commonwealth, Monmouth hoped for the crown for himself. Russell and Hampden were attached to the old constitution, and sought for “redress of grievances.” And whilst they were discussing, the “Rye House Plot” was formed by some inferior conspirators of the same way of thinking. The Rye House lay on the road to Newmarket. The owner, Rumbold, was an old Republican, and a plan was formed to kill the king on his way to Newmarket races. It was made known to the Government, and though it was shown that some of the greater men had held meetings at the Rye House in support of their general views, it was also clear that neither Russell, Essex nor Sidney were parties to the assassination scheme. The trial of Lord Russell, and the devotion of his wife furnish a pathetic chapter in history. He was beheaded in Lincoln’s Inn Fields July 21, 1683. On the same day Lord Essex was found in the Tower with his throat cut. Some held that he had been murdered by the king and the Duke of York, but the coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of suicide, and Gardiner and Green both consider this as the most probable view. Sidney followed. He was in principle a republican, though he had refused to accept a seat among the judges of Charles I. He was now condemned on the sole evidence of his companion, Lord Howard, who had turned king’s evidence to save his own life, and on that of some letters of his in which he upheld the lawfulness of resisting tyrants. Jeffreys, who was now Chief Justice, tried him, and persuaded the jury to convict. He was beheaded on December 7.

Charles II and his brother James are said not to have visited the Tower for fifteen years before they came thither at the time of Essex’s death. When Charles died, February 6, 168-⁴/₅, the Tower may be said to have ceased to be a royal residence. At the coronation of James II, the usual procession from thence to Westminster was omitted, and has never since been revived. But it continued to be a state prison. There is no need to tell how the unhappy son of Charles II and Lucy Walters, James, Duke of Monmouth, took up arms to obtain the crown, and how he was defeated at the battle of Sedgemoor, the last battle fought on English ground, July 6, 1685. He was captured and brought to London on the 13th, and being allowed an interview with the king, with abject cries supplicated in vain for his life. He was sent to the Tower, and two days later, a bill of attainder having been previously passed against him, he was beheaded on Tower Hill. The Bishops of Ely and Bath and Wells (Turner and Ken) accompanied him to the scaffold, where his head was hacked off after five blows.

But a memorable time was reached in the history of the Church and Nation when “the Seven Bishops” were brought hither as prisoners. The king announced his intention of repealing by his own personal act the Penal Laws against Roman Catholics and Dissenters. The leading Dissenters in reply—Baxter, Howe, Bunyan—rejected such “indulgence,” which they said should be by Act of Parliament, not by an absolute overruling of the law. They saw, of course, clearly what his aim was. He was, as usual, obstinate, published the “Declaration of Indulgence,” which all the clergy were commanded to read in church. Four only did it in London, and when they began the congregations walked out, and a similar spirit was shown in the country. The Archbishop, Sancroft, summoned his brother bishops to Lambeth, and the six who were able to obey him, namely Lloyd of St. Asaph, Ken of Bath and Wells, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney of Bristol, joined in a temperate protest, in which they told the King that the declaration was illegal, and asked him to withdraw it. In anger he sent them all to the Tower for “uttering a seditious libel.” They were carried to Traitors’ Gate, the banks of the river thronged with cheering spectators; the very sentinels knelt for their blessing and the soldiers drank their healths. The narrative of their trial in Westminster Hall is perhaps the most splendid chapter in Macaulay’s History. On June 29 they were acquitted, although the jury had been packed and the judges were tools of the Crown, and the roof of Westminster Hall cracked at the tremendous applause which followed the verdict.

A curious episode occurred in the last days of James’s reign. Bevis Skelton was English minister in the Netherlands, and warned James of the designs of the Duke of Orange, whereupon the latter pressed for his recall. James sent him then to Versailles, and he moved Louis XIV to oppose William’s schemes. But King James resented his interference, recalled him, and sent him to the Tower; and then finding that the danger from Orange was imminent, made Skelton governor of the fortress in which he had been a prisoner. When James fled, the keys of the Tower were taken from Skelton and confided to Lord Lucas, who held them for the Prince of Orange. Skelton followed the king across seas and died in his service.

Lucas had not long held his office before he was entrusted with the custody of Judge Jeffreys. That this extraordinary man was violent of temper no one questions; he was also a man of strong convictions; he never in his subservience to his royal master showed any yielding to that master’s faith; he had great natural ability; and as we read of his unrelenting cruelty in his progress through Dorset and Somerset to try the rebels after the Sedgemoor campaign, it is also impossible not to see how skilfully he produced evidence against his prisoners. In that “Bloody Assize” 350 rebels were hanged, more than 800 were sold into slavery beyond sea, and a yet larger number were whipped and imprisoned. Even loyal subjects were appalled at the cruelty, and he was regarded with horror and disgust. James made him Lord Chancellor, and when James fled, Jeffreys knew that his own fall was imminent. He heard the mob shouting his name and disguised himself as a collier, and hid himself in a little house at Wapping until such time as he could escape beyond sea. He was recognized, whilst looking out of window, by a clerk that he had bullied from the bench, was seized and conveyed first to the Mansion House, then to the Tower. And here he died, on April 19, 1689. He was only forty-one years old. He is buried in the chancel of St. Mary, Aldermanbury.

During the twelve years’ joint reign of William and Mary there was only one political execution, namely that of Sir John Fenwick, who was beheaded on Tower Hill, January 28, 1697, for conspiring to assassinate King William. He was a man of irregular life, and there is no doubt of his guilt. But the Tower was constantly receiving fresh captives, partisans of the House of Stuart. Thus in 1690 “Francis Cholmondeley, Esquire, a member of the House of Commons, was committed for refusing to take the oaths of allegiance; and Matthew Crosse, otherwise Long, Colonel John Butler, Major George Matthews, Lieutenant-Colonel Knyvet Hastings and the Earl of Yarmouth, in the same year, ‘for abetting and adhering to their Majesties’ enemies.’ To these may be added Charles Halton, Esquire, for publishing a treasonable libel; Bernard Howard, Esquire; Lord Ross; Arthur, Earl of Torrington; Sir John Gage and Sir Walter Vavasour, for various political offences amounting to high treason. Mr. Stafford, the Earls of Newburgh, Clancarty and Tyrone; with Thomas, Lord Morley and Monteagle; Henry, Earl of Clarendon; George, Lord Dartmouth; Major-General Maxwell; Lord Cahire; Major-General Dorrington and Mr. Maxwell were also prisoners, but the specific charges under which they were committed are unascertained” (Britton).

In 1692, John, Earl of Marlborough, was imprisoned on a charge “of abetting and adhering to their Majesties’ enemies,” as were also Lord Brudenell, the Earl of Huntingdon, Sir Robert Thorold and Colonel Langston. They were, after two months’ confinement, released on bail to reappear if called upon. Charles, Lord Mohun, was also a prisoner in the same year, for having killed William Mountford, the celebrated comedian, in a quarrel on account of Mrs. Bracegirdle, an eminent actress. Readers of Esmond will remember the story. “In February, 1692, Lord Viscount Falkland and Henry Guy, Esquire, suffered a short confinement in the Tower for having, as Members of Parliament, received bribes; and, at various intervals during the year, Colonel John Parker; Bartholomew Walmesley, Esquire; Sir Thomas Stanley; Caryl, Lord Viscount Mollineux; Sir Rowland Stanley; Sir Thomas Clifton; Sir William Gerard; Peter Leigh and William Dicconson, Esquires, were immured in the same prison on charges of adhering to the enemies of the Government, and levying war against their Majesties.”

“In 1696, Charles, Earl of Monmouth, ‘for having spoken disrespectfully of the king,’ and Henry Buckley, Esquire; Thomas, Earl of Ailesbury; Sir Philip Constable; Arthur, Lord Forbes; and Sir John Fenwick were imprisoned here on various charges of sedition and treason. Thomas, Lord Kerry, and Brigadier Richard Ingoldsby were committed, in the following year, for having challenged the Lord Chancellor of Ireland; as were, likewise, John Knight and Charles Duncombe, Esquires, members of the House of Commons, the former for having falsely endorsed exchequer bills, and the latter for aiding and assisting in his illegal practices. Two years afterwards, Sir Richard Levin was lodged in this fortress for aspersing the characters of four of the commissioners of Irish forfeitures; as were also Charles, Lord Mohun, and Edward, Earl of Warwick and Holland, on a charge of murdering Richard Coote, Esquire; but those noblemen were unanimously acquitted by their peers.”

The largeness of the number of prisoners is shown by a paper in the handwriting of Sir C. Wren in 1695. He was directed to examine the Bloody and Beauchamp Towers to see what additions could be made for the reception of prisoners, apparently with special reference to the arrivals from Ireland. He replies, “I have also viewed the place behinde the Chappell, and considered and do approve the annex’d draught proposed to be built wch I take to be as Large as ye place will afford containing 15 square and if it be well built in 3 storeys, Cellars and garretts it will cost £600. As to the number of Prisoners the place may hold I can only report wt number of rooms each place contains. Beauchamp Tower hath a large Kitching 2 large rooms and 2 small servants rooms. Bloody Tower hath a kitching one room and one closet. The new building may contain 9 single rooms, besides cellars and garrets and a kitching, all wch is humbly submitted.”

In the early years of Queen Anne’s reign there were a good many sent to the Tower, taken in the French wars, but no state prisoners. But in 1712 a notable attempt was made on a famous public man, Sir Robert Walpole. He had been in Parliament since the queen’s accession, and had displayed such brilliant ability as a financier as to induce the Duke of Marlborough to give him office in the Government. But his Whiggism, moderate as it was, offended Harley and Mrs. Masham, who gained continually more ascendency over the queen, and Harley intrigued shamefully against him, and brought a vague charge of breach of trust in office and of corruption. It was a thoroughly unjust charge, but on the strength of it he was sent to the Tower and expelled from the House of Commons. But public opinion was roused by the injustice, and largely withdrew its confidence from the Tory ministry. Whilst he remained in the prison he was visited by great people, and his constituency (King’s Lynn) returned him again as its member. He remained in confinement from February to July, and employed his time in writing political pamphlets.

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