BY EDITH SESSIONS TUPPER.

It is believed by many that the Tower of London is, as its name would seem to indicate, but a single lofty pile, while in reality it is a vast collection of grim towers and frowning bastions; a great walled town in the heart of busy London.

The Tower, or the White Tower, built in the time of the Conqueror, is surrounded by twelve smaller towers—Bloody, Bell, Beauchamp, Devereux, Flint, Bowyer, Brick, Martin, Constable, Broadarrow, Salt and Record. In turn, these are environed by the ballium walls and bastions, and the moat guarded by Middle, Byward, St. Thomas, Cradle, Well and Devlin towers.

As one descends Tower Hill, the eye takes in the whole immense and hoary mass, fit emblem of the stormy and tempestuous times in which each separate tower arose. Like black shadows of the past casting their gloom over the present, rise the lofty turrets above the roofs of modern buildings. Sternly they look down upon throbbing London, each with its own history, each with its own awful secrets locked in its stony breast.

Amid the terrific conflict of the days when the Norman was trampling the Saxon under foot, the Tower, the Great Tower, or the White Tower, as it was variously called, arose.

William the Conqueror caused it to be built as a fortress for himself in case his Saxon subjects might rebel against his hard and iron rule. Among the ecclesiastics who possessed the richest sees of those days was Gundulph, bishop of Rochester, who was also a fine military architect. To him the Conqueror gave the commission to build his New Fortress in 1079-80. Gundulph selected the site just without the city then, and to the east, on the northern side of the Thames. The tower is quadrangular in shape, one hundred and sixteen feet from north to south, ninety-six from east to west, ninety-two feet in height, and its external walls are fifteen feet in thickness—an imposing and superb specimen of Norman architecture. It is three stories high, not counting the vaults. There are some slight traces remaining of the grand entrance on the north side, but visitors enter by modern doors on both the north and south sides.

In the northeast corner of the White Tower is a massive staircase, connecting the three stories. The column around which the stairs wind is a remarkable and well preserved specimen of ancient masonry. A wall seven feet in thickness runs north and south, which divides the tower from base to summit. Another wall extending east and west subdivides the southern portion into unequal parts, forming in each story one large and two small rooms. The smallest division on the ground floor is called Queen Elizabeth’s Armory, being filled with armor and trappings of her day. On the north side of this room, one is shown a cell formed in the thickness of the wall, ten feet long and eight wide, receiving no light save from the entrance. In this dark and dismal room was imprisoned for twelve long years the gay and brilliant courtier, Sir Walter Raleigh, on suspicion merely of being implicated in a plot to place the Lady Arabella Stuart, the niece of the unfortunate Queen of Scots, on the throne of England. This ill-fated lady also perished in the tower, her reason having been dethroned by her long and cruel captivity. In the year she died, Sir Walter was released and sent to South America to search for gold mines; returning unsuccessful he was remanded to the Tower, and beheaded in 1618 to please the Spaniards. James First wished to gain their favor, as his son Prince Charles was to be married to the Infanta. Raleigh’s bravery and valor had been too often directed against the Spaniards for them not to exult over his cruel fate. In this wretched and gloomy cell, it is said, he wrote his “History of the World.” In the center of this armory are various instruments of torture; about the room are stands of weapons, halberds, battle axes, maces and bills, and military instruments for cutting the bridles of horses; at the end of the room is a figure on horseback, representing Queen Bess. Her dress is copied from an ancient portrait, and she is attended by officers and pages. Just back of these figures hangs a very old picture of St. Paul’s cathedral. But the most terribly fascinating objects in this room are the block, the headsman’s hideous, grinning mask and the original axe. With horror the visitor looks upon the block, dented here and there where the executioner’s nervous blows struck wide of the mark, and upon the ponderous axe, whose blade has cleft the necks of so many royal and noble victims.

One is glad to leave this chamber of horrors and go above into St. John’s Chapel, which is considered one of the finest specimens of Norman architecture left in the kingdom. It terminates in a semi-circle, and the twelve enormous pillars are arranged in similar fashion. These pillars are united by arches which admit the light into the nave from the windows. In the reign of Henry III. three immense windows of stained glass were added to the chapel. It is not known at what time or from what cause it ceased to be used for religious purposes. A large room directly above, on the third floor, was used as a council chamber by the kings, when they held their court in the Tower. It was in this room that the infamous Richard, Duke of Gloucester, ordered Lord Hastings to instant execution in front of St. Peter’s Chapel.

This room is now used as a depository for small arms, and the arrangement of weapons in the form of various flowers is wonderful and artistic, the entire ceiling being covered by curious and intricate combinations of these arms.

Encircling the great White Tower, as has been said, is a row of twelve smaller towers. Perhaps the one first in interest is that directly opposite the Traitor’s Gate, and rightly named, known as the Bloody Tower. It is rectangular in form, being the only one of that shape in the inner ward. It closely joins Record or Wakefield Tower on the west. Its grand gateway was built in the reign of Edward III., and is the entrance proper to the inner ward. The massive portcullis gives signs of immense age. It was in this tower in 1483, that the most infamous order of the hateful Gloucester, the murder of the innocent princes, the children of Edward IV., was consummated.

The little victims are supposed to have been buried at the foot of the staircase in the White Tower, but a strange mystery surrounds their fate.

Joining Bloody Tower is the tower next in size to the Great or White Tower, known as the Record Tower, from its having been for many centuries the depository for the records of the nation, and Wakefield Tower, from the imprisonment there of the Yorkists, after the victory of Margaret of Anjou, the Amazonian queen of the good but weak Henry VI., at Wakefield, in 1460. This victory gave the House of Lancaster the ascendency for a short time. The next year the Yorkists were successful, Henry was remanded to the tower, and was soon after found dead, murdered by Gloucester’s command, it is supposed.

Wakefield Tower is very ancient, having been built in the time of William Rufus, in 1087.

On the opposite side of the inner ward looms up the gloomy and famous Bowyer Tower, so named from its having been the residence of the Master Provider of the King’s Bows. In a dungeon-like room of this tower, “false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,” younger brother of Edward IV., was drowned in a butt of Malmsey. Together with the detestable Gloucester, he stabbed the young son of Henry VI. in the field at Tewkesbury, but retribution was swift. He soon incurred the displeasure and jealousy of his royal brother, and perished in this wretched manner.

But a short distance from the Bowyer is the Brick Tower, which acquires a mournful interest from the fact that tradition has assigned this as the prison of the martyr of ambition, the lovely Lady Jane Grey. Fuller says of her that at eighteen she possessed the innocence of childhood, the sedateness of age, the learning of a clerk, and the life of a saint. Gentle, modest and retiring, fond of her studies and books, little dreamed she of her short-lived honor and cruel fate. Forced upon the throne by the insatiable ambition of Northumberland, she ruled for ten days. It is asserted that Mary wished to spare her cousin’s life, but that Wyatt’s rebellion so alarmed her that she determined to make an example of Lady Jane and her boy husband, Guildford Dudley.

Not only her piety, grace and beauty excite our admiration, but also her sublime heroism, which caused her to refuse to bid her young lover and husband farewell, lest the parting should unman him. Dudley was executed on Tower Hill, and the same day the lofty spirit of his wife joined his.

Next to the Brick is the Jewel or Martin Tower, where the crown jewels were formerly kept. They are now preserved in the Record Tower. On the wall of the Martin Tower we saw inscribed the name of Anne Boleyn. It is said that one of the unfortunate gentlemen who lost their heads on her account traced it there. Diagonally across the inner ward rises the Bell Tower, thus named from the alarm bell which crowned it. This was the prison of Princess Elizabeth during her enforced stay in the tower. Some little children used to bring her flowers here, until it came to the ears of Mary, who forbade this innocent service.

Only a short walk from Bell loom up the frowning walls of Beauchamp Tower, than which there is no more interesting place in the entire enclosure. Its architecture is of the reign of John and Henry III. Its name is derived from Thomas De Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, imprisoned here during the reign of Richard II. This tower is in the center of the western side of the inner ward, and in a half circle projects from the strong ballium walls, and is two stories in height. Its walls are covered with inscriptions made by different prisoners; some indicative of their mental agony during their captivity; many, indeed the most, expressing Christian fortitude and pious resignation to their hard lot.

The first name noticed is that of Marmaduke Neville, near the entrance. He was one of the Nevilles, Earls of Westmoreland, and was implicated in a plot to place Mary Stuart upon the throne during Elizabeth’s reign. In the southern recess is shown an inscription in old Italian: “Dispoi che voie la fortuna che la mea speranza va al vento pianger, hovolio el tempo per dudo; e semper stel me tristo, e disconteto. Wilim: Tyrrel, 1541.” The mournful burden of which comes like a sigh of despair from out the past, “Since fortune hath chosen that my hope should go to the wind to complain, I wish the time were destroyed; my planet being ever sad and unfavorable.” Alas, unhappy one! Your words no doubt were but the echo of many sad hearts that found the times were indeed out of joint.

Over the fireplace is a beautiful and touching inscription: “Quanto plus afflictionis pro Christo in hoc sÆculo, tanto plus gloriÆ cum Christo in futuro. Arundell, June 22, 1587,” which being interpreted is, “The more affliction for Christ in this world, the more glory with Christ in the next.”

This was written by Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, whose devotion to the Romish church during Elizabeth’s reign, brought so much odium upon him, and made for him so many enemies that he at last resolved to leave his country, friends, and his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached, and go into voluntary exile for his better safety. He informed the Queen in a most pathetic letter of his intention, designing she should not receive it until he was well out of way, but by some freak of fortune, the letter fell into the hands of his foes, and he was seized as he was setting sail from the coast of Sussex. He was sent to the Tower and kept a close prisoner for forty years, when worn out with his long and cruel confinement and sorrow he died, realizing at the end, we hope, the truth of the touching words he traced upon his prison walls.

There are several interesting inscriptions made by Arthur and Edmund Poole, great-grandsons of the Duke of Clarence. These young gentlemen were also accused for conspiring for Mary Stuart, adjudged traitors, and pined away their lives in hopeless captivity. Well might the White Rose of Scotland have said with Helen of Troy:

One inscription reads:

A passage perilous indeed, hadst thou, poor soul; God grant thou madst a fair haven at last.

Another contains these words:

In all the inscriptions left by these ill-starred gentlemen, there breathes the same spirit of noble and pious submission.

The greatest interest clusters about one little word, supposed to have been traced by the hand of one to whom that name was sacred. Directly under one of the Poole autographs is the word “IANE,” supposed to have been the royal title of Lady Jane Grey, written there by her husband, Lord Dudley, who was confined in this tower. Scarcely can the eyes be restrained at this touching reminder of the fate of those two unhappy children, the victims of circumstance and greedy ambition.

In the corner next the Beauchamp is the Devereux Tower, named from the brilliant Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, the chivalric soldier and courtier, first a petted favorite, then a victim of Queen Elizabeth. His story is one of thrilling and fascinating interest. Meteor-like he flashed through his court and army life, and after gaining the zenith of his power, sank as suddenly as he had risen. It is said that he was one of the many with whom the royal and fickle spinster coquetted, and that he really touched her haughty heart. The government of Ireland was in his hands, but enemies at court plotted his overthrow. He in turn plotted against these foes and rashly attempted to cause their removal. He was arrested and arraigned in Westminster Hall for high treason, pronounced guilty, and doomed to the block.

Elizabeth had a terrific struggle between revenge and affection, but the baser passion got the victory, and the accomplished general, statesman, and courtier trod the same hard road to death that so many knew full well.

The towers of the outer ward are comparatively of but little interest, with the exception of St. Thomas’s Tower or the Traitor’s Gate. This is a large, square building over the moat, the outside of which is guarded by two circular towers, which exhibit specimens of the architecture of the time of Henry III. The gate through which state prisoners entered the Tower is underneath this building.

The rain was falling drearily on the day we visited the Tower. Somber and heavy skies looked sullenly down on the gloomy scene. Thoughts as somber and heavy weighed down our minds as we stood before the Traitor’s Gate; thoughts of countless numbers that had gone in at that gate never to come forth again. In the clang of those iron portals behind them they heard their death knell. The royal, the noble, the illustrious, the pious passed under these frowning battlements, leaving behind grandeur, brilliancy of courts, dreams of glory, home, friends, all that makes life sweet, to receive in exchange, the dungeon, the scaffold, the block, the axe.

They who entered there left hope indeed behind.

Through this gate went Elizabeth, expecting naught but death; dreaming little of the hour when all England should lie within the hollow of her white hand. Under these portals three short years after she issued from the Tower in all the full flush of her pride and triumph, received by lords and dukes, amid the blare of trumpets, and peal of bells and roar of guns. Elizabeth’s hapless mother, Anne Boleyn, returned to the Tower. No nobles in her train now; no burst of music; no chime of bells nor roar of artillery; alone, save with her jailers; her fair fame blackened; her triumphs, glories—all shrunk to this little measure. The husband she had stolen from another, in turn lured from her, wearied of her, longing to be rid of her, hurrying her to her fearful doom with brutal haste.

What thoughts must have chased each other in lightning rapidity through the mind of beautiful, brilliant, witty Anne Boleyn, during those short seventeen days she passed in the Tower before she was led out to execution. What experience of life had she not compressed into those three little years of usurpation, during which she spurned “heads like foot balls,” laughed, danced, and jested away her poor, butterfly life? What remorse must have been hers when the sad, pale face of Katharine arose before her! What unspeakable anguish when the coquettish features of Jane Seymour swam before her weeping eyes!

On the 19th of May, 1536, when hedge and field were bursting into bloom, when birds sang and soft breezes played, when all nature must have breathed of beauty, hope and life—Anne Boleyn went forth the second time from the Tower to receive her crown; not this time an earthly diadem, glittering with jewels, but the thorny crown of martyrdom. Not in cloth of gold and blazing with gems, but in sable robes went she to this coronation, and her only salute was the dull boom of the cannon which announced to the royal ruffian waiting at Richmond that he was free.

The Tower of London has been used not alone for a fortress and prison, but also for a palace. All of the kings from William to Charles II. held occasional court in the Tower. A palace occupied a space in the inner ward, between the southwest corner of the White Tower and the Record, Salt and Broadarrow Towers. The queens had a suite extending from the Lanthorn to the southeast of the White Tower. And near the Record Tower was a great hall which demanded forty fir trees to repair it at the time of the marriage festivities of Henry III. and Eleanore of Provence.

When Edward the Black Prince took prisoner King John of France, he lodged his royal captive in this palace, and King John gave an entertainment for his captor in this great hall. The beautiful Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV., and queen of Henry VII., resided for a time in this palace, and passed from thence to her coronation. Sixteen years later she lay in state twelve days in the royal chapel in the White Tower, where her knights and ladies kept solemn vigil beside her bier. What an impressive scene it must have been! The windows all ablaze with lights, and an illuminated hearse holding the royal dead.

Queen Mary held court in the Tower directly after she had defeated Northumberland and the Dudleys. The ancient custom of a state procession from the Tower to Westminster was observed for the last time at the coronation of Charles II.

Very near the Devereux Tower is a plain, unpretentious building—the chapel of St. Peter Ad Vincula. It is small, having but one nave and one side aisle, and is quite without ornamentation. But marvelous interest invests it. Here Lady Jane was buried; here the body of poor Anne Boleyn was thrust into an old chest and hastily interred in the vaults; here lies the dust of Northumberland, Thomas Cromwell, Somerset, Surrey, and Essex, teaching the terribly solemn lesson that ambition, talents, fame, form no sure bulwark against death.

Just in front of this chapel is the spot on which the scaffold was built; the spot where the best blood of England flowed like water; the spot which mars the escutcheon of the Tudors with an ineffaceable stain; the spot where Englishmen first looked upon the spectacle of the blood of their countrywoman flowing beneath the blows of a foreign headsman. Here fell the heads of two of the wives of Henry VIII.; here the hapless Lady Jane was despatched, and the gallant Essex met his death by orders of Henry’s daughters, fit representatives of their father; here was enacted that revolting scene, the butchery of the venerable mother of Cardinal Pole, the Countess of Salisbury. She was sister of the Earl of Warwick, and daughter of the murdered Clarence. Her only crime seems to have been her royal blood. When brought out to execution, she refused to lay her head on the block, saying haughtily, “So do traitors use to do, and I am no traitor.” The sequel is almost too sickening to be rehearsed. The executioner pursued his victim around the scaffold, striking at her with his axe, and finally dragged her by her white hairs to the block. Thus miserably perished the last of the Plantagenets.

Heavier fell the rain and wilder blew the wind as we slowly took our way toward the outer entrance to the Tower. In the patter of the rain upon the stone flagging beneath us, we seemed to hear the footsteps of a countless, headless throng; in the slow drip, drip of the raindrops from the gloomy walls, the drip, drip of warm life blood trickling down and ebbing away; borne on the wail of the wind there seemed to come sighs of anguish, moaning voices long since silenced, voices from out a dreadful past, voices that cried aloud for vengeance. And as the great gates of the Tower clanged behind us, in a tremendous peal of thunder, there seemed to come an answering voice from heaven, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.”