If anyone were staying in London for the first time, what do you suppose he or she would want to see most? It would depend on the character and age of that person. If it were a boy, he would be almost sure to say the Zoological Gardens. A girl might choose Madame Tussaud's. But besides these there are many other things that could be chosen—St. Paul's Cathedral; the British Museum; Westminster Abbey. Also places of entertainment, like Maskelyne's Mysteries, where there is conjuring so wonderful that, having seen it no one can believe the sight of his own eyes. At Christmas time many of the large shops turn themselves into shows, with all sorts of attractive sights to be enjoyed free, so that people may be brought into the shop and possibly buy something. All these things are attractive. But there is one thing not yet mentioned, which is the best of all, and interesting to both boys and girls alike, as well as to men and women. This is the Tower of London. I am now going to imagine that you are staying with me on a visit, and every day we will do something enjoyable, and go to see something fresh. We could go on for days and days doing this in London, and not come to the end of the sights. But the first thing to see, the very first, ought to be the Tower, because it is one of the few old buildings left in London, and there are so many stories connected with it they would make a big fat book in themselves. On the first morning of your visit to London you would get up in a rather excited frame of mind, and be anxious to start off at once. That would be as well, because if we are to go to the Tower it will take us a long time to get there. Before the west end of London was built the Tower was in the important part of London. All that could then be called London clustered round it. In those days, when the country was unsettled and enemies appeared suddenly outside a town, and might burn and destroy houses, and steal all that they could lay hands on, it was necessary to have a wall all round the city. This wall was very strong and high, and could be defended by men with spears and arrows. It ran right round the city on three sides, and on the fourth was the river. In the reign of William the Conqueror there was no strong castle or palace for the King in London, but only an old fortress on one side of this wall, the east side, quite near to the river. This fortress had stood there for a long time. No one knew when it had been built. King William ordered it to be pulled down, and in its place he caused a strong castle to be built. Part of the city wall was pulled down to make room for this castle, and so began the Tower of London. If we, living in the West End, want to get to the Tower, we must take an omnibus or train and go right through the City until, at the place where the City and the East End meet, we shall find the Tower. It is a very fine building, with a great square tower in the middle. Round it are the gardens, and round the gardens, again, there is another line of buildings, which have smaller towers set here and there upon them at intervals. Circling round the outermost walls is a huge, deep ditch, as big and broad as a river. This was once a moat full of water. The water from the Thames ran into it and filled it, and it formed a strong barrier of defence for the Tower, and attacking forces would have found it a difficult matter to swim across that ST. MARY-LE-STRAND AND BUSH HOUSE.Oh, how many stories that Tower has to tell! Every stone of it must have heard something interesting. But saddest of all must have been the groans When we draw near we see the White Tower standing up above all the rest. To cross the moat we have to go over a bridge, once a drawbridge—that is, a bridge which could be drawn up and let down again as the people in the Tower liked. Close by the drawbridge was, until just before Queen Victoria's reign, a place where lions and tigers and all sorts of wild animals lived. It seems curious they should have been kept there, where they could not have had any room to wander about, and when they were moved to the Zoological Gardens it must have been much better for them. The animals were here through the reigns of all the kings and queens of England, from Henry I. to Queen Victoria. If we go to the front of the Tower, which faces the river, we shall see a fine sight. There is the splendid Tower Bridge that we read of before; there is the gray, glittering river; and there are many ships and barges floating up and down on the water. Underneath our feet is a deep channel, now dry, where the river once ran in to fill up the moat. It flowed under a great gloomy archway with a gate, and when the river was running here When the prisoners who were in the Tower had to be tried before judges they were taken up the river in barges to Westminster, where all the evidence was heard, and then they were brought back again. How many of them made that last sad journey and entered the Traitor's Gate never to come out again! They had been to Westminster to be tried, feeling quite sure something would happen in their favour, and they would be set free; and then they had heard the sentence that they were to be beheaded! They came back down the river, and the sunshine might be just as gay, the water as sparkling, as when they went, but to Of some of those who suffered in the Tower you have heard. Sir Thomas More landed here when he came in his barge from Chelsea, but we know that he was too brave and good to feel much fear. Lady Jane Grey landed here when her father and father-in-law brought her here, calling her Queen; she came as a queen, but stayed here afterwards as a prisoner. Did any warning tell her this when she stepped out of the boat? Queen Elizabeth came here, too, when she was only a princess. Her sister Mary was on the throne, and Mary feared that people would make Elizabeth queen, so she sent her as a prisoner to the Tower. We know the very words Elizabeth said as she landed, though nearly three hundred and fifty years have passed since then. She exclaimed: 'Here landeth as true a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed on these stairs, and before Thee, O God, I speak it, having none There were many, many others who landed here, never to come forth again as free men. Some died in imprisonment; some were beheaded; some suffered for their crimes; some were innocent, but suffered because they had aroused the anger of a jealous king. Some went into those walls to suffer tortures worse than death—tortures of the thumbscrew and rack, to make them betray the names of their companions. Some came here as martyrs, because they believed in God, and thought the suffering of the present time as nothing to the glory hereafter. Having looked long at the Traitor's Gate, we can pass on into the Tower and see what else is there. The prisoners went sometimes from the Traitor's Gate to the Bloody Tower, so called from the fact Very soon the dark walls beheld another prisoner, Archbishop Cranmer, a martyr in Queen Mary's reign. Cranmer was not a strong man by nature, and the long wearing imprisonment tried him so much that at last he gave in to his enemies, and said he would renounce his faith. He thought then he would be released; but no, he heard that he was to be burned all the same. We can imagine the horror of the poor prisoner, who had denied his religion and yet not saved his life. He realized then how weak he had been, and, like St. Peter, no doubt he wept bitterly. However, Another well-known man was imprisoned in the Bloody Tower after Cranmer. This was Sir Walter Raleigh, who, as a handsome, gay young man, had attracted great favour from Queen Elizabeth. It is said that one day when she was going to cross a puddle Raleigh sprang forward and flung a beautiful cloak he was wearing over the mud as a carpet for her feet. The cloak was very rich and handsome, as were the cloaks the nobles wore then. Of course it was spoilt, and Elizabeth was much flattered by the courtesy of the young man. She made him a knight, and he was raised to great honour. He sailed across the seas and discovered new lands, and he brought back tobacco and introduced smoking into England. When the Spaniards attacked England, the gay and gallant Sir Walter fought valiantly, and came back There were many others imprisoned in the Bloody Tower; but we must pass on. In walking from one part of the Tower to another we meet some men dressed very curiously in red dresses with velvet caps. These are the Beef-eaters, who guard the Tower, also called the Yeomen of the Guard. Their odd name and odd dress always attract people, and they are such fine men that children sometimes wonder if they are called Beef-eaters because they eat a lot of beef! That is not so. The name is said to come from an old French word buffetier, which means a man who waited at a buffet or sideboard; and in old times the beef-eaters waited on the King and Queen, and they still wear the same costume they wore three hundred years ago. Every night before midnight the chief Beef-eater goes to find the chief warder; the Beef-eater carries the keys of the Tower, and with a guard of men the two go together to lock up the outer gate. When the sentinel who keeps watch hears them, he calls out, 'Who goes there?' and the answer is, 'The Keys!' Then says the sentinel, 'Advance, King George's Keys!' This is a curious old custom. Close by the Bloody Tower is the Jewel House, where the crowns of the King and Queen and other royalties are kept. They are made of gold and set with In the White Tower are rooms full of armour worn by English soldiers—armour of all the different ages, from the time when a man wore so much iron that if he fell down he could not get up again, and sometimes was actually smothered before he could get out of it, up to the present day. In the White Tower there is one very awful dungeon, a little narrow cell, without a ray of light, no window at all—nothing but dense blackness. There must have been many prisoners kept here, for on the walls there are sad cuttings, now half worn away, which tell how the poor men occupied their time in chipping their names in the stone. Many of the martyrs of Queen Mary's reign must have felt this terrible blackness, for there are texts of which the dates show that they were cut at that time. One of these is, 'Be faithful The torture instruments are shown in the White Tower too, and many of these brave martyrs felt the torture before they reached the light. The rack was very commonly used. On it men—yes, and women too—were sometimes stretched as on a bed; their wrists were tied with cords above their heads, and their ankles with cords to the other end of the rack. Then a man turned a handle, and the hands and feet were slowly drawn in opposite directions. The poor wretch might shriek and scream, or he might turn as white as death and let never a sound escape him; but it was all the same: the rack moved on. There was a doctor there to feel the victim's heart and say when he could bear no more without dying. And then, when that happened, perhaps he fainted with the agony and was released, and carried away to be allowed to recover a little, only to be brought back another day. Sometimes he would bear it bravely enough the first time, but at the second time his courage would give way, and he would cry out and say he There is a very beautiful chapel in the White Tower which we must certainly see. Outside in the garden, opposite to another chapel, called St. Peter ad Vincula, is the execution ground, where so many people were beheaded. But I think this is enough for one chapter, and we will learn something more about the Tower in the next. |