The History of London by Walter Besant (best classic books TXT) 📕

size than barges to pass up the river and could be used to keep back an enemy. In this way Sir Thomas Wyatt in 1557 was kept out of London. Before this drawbridge stood a tower on the battlements of which were placed the heads of traitors and criminals. The heads of Sir William Wallace, Jack Cade, Sir Thomas More and many others were stuck up here. On the Southwark side was another tower.

The Bridge, which was the pride and boast of London, was endowed with lands for its maintenance: the rents of the houses were also collected for the same purpose: a toll was imposed on all merchandise carried across, and a Brotherhood was formed, called the Brothers of St. Thomas on the Bridge, whose duty it was to perform service in the chapel and to keep the Bridge in repair.

Repairs were always wanting: to keep some of the force of the water off the piers these were furnished with 'starlings,' i.e. at first piles driven down in front of the piers, afterwards turned into projecting buttresses of stone. Then corn mills were built in some of the openings, and in the year 1582 great waterworks were constructed at the southern end. The tower before the drawbridge was by Queen Elizabeth rebuilt and made a very splendid house--called Nonesuch House. The Fire destroyed the houses on the Bridge, some of which were not rebuilt: and in the year 1757 all the houses were removed from the Bridge.

The New Bridge was finished and opened in 1831--it stands 180 feet west of its predecessor. Then the Old Bridge was pulled down. The work of Peter Colechurch lasted from 1209 to 1831 or 622 years. The Pontife Brothers, therefore, knew how to put in good and lasting work.

This is the history of London Bridge. First a narrow wooden gangway of beams lying on timber piles with a fortified gate; then a stone structure of twenty irregular arches, the Bridge broad but the roadway still narrow with houses on either side and a fortress and a chapel upon it--in those times there was always a fortress, and there was always a chapel. It must have been a pleasant place of residence: the air fresh and clear: the supply of water unlimited--one drew it up in a bucket: always something going on: the entrance of a foreign ambassador, a religious procession, a riding of the Lord Mayor, a pageant, a nobleman with his livery, a Bishop or a Prior with his servants, a pilgrimage, a string of pack horses out of Kent bringing fruit for the City: always something to see. Then there were the stories and traditions of the place, with the songs which the children sang about the Bridge. Especially there was the story of Edward Osborne. He was the son of one Richard Osborne, a gentleman of Kent. Like many sons of the poor country gentlemen, he was sent up to London and apprenticed to Sir William Hewitt a cloth worker who lived on London Bridge. His master had a daughter named Anne, a little girl who one day, while playing with her nurse at an open window overhanging the river, fell out into the rushing water sixty feet below. The apprentice, young Osborne, leaped into the river after her and succeeded in saving her. When the girl was grown up her father gave her to his ex-apprentice, Edward Osborne, to wife. Edward Osborne became Lord Mayor. His descendant is now Duke of Leeds. So that the Dukedom of Leeds sprang from that gallant leap out of the window overhanging the river Thames from London Bridge.



17. THE TOWER OF LONDON.

PART I.

In an age when every noble's house was a castle, and when every castle was erected in order to dominate, as well as to defend, the town and the district in which it stood, the Tower of London was erected. The builder of the White Tower was William the Conqueror, who gave the City its Charter but had no intention of giving up his own sovereignty; the architect, as has been already said, was one Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester. Part of the City wall was pulled down to make room for it, and it was intended at once for the King's Palace, the King's Castle, and the King's Prison. It was also the key of London--who held the Tower, held the City.

William Rufus built a wall round the Tower so as to separate it entirely from the City and to prevent the danger of a hasty rising of the people: with the same object he gave it a water gate.

A hundred years later, while Richard Coeur de Lion was on his Crusade, the moat was constructed. Henry III. and his son Edward I. added to the outer walls and strengthened them.

There is a plan of the Tower made from a survey of the year 1597 and published by the Society of Antiquaries. A study of the plan should be made before visiting the place. Remark first of all that the fortress has three entrances only: one at the S.W. angle to the City; one to the river now called Traitors' Gate; and one on the S.E. angle called the Irongate: that it is surrounded by a broad and deep moat which could be filled at every high tide: that from the moat rises a battlemented wall, and that within this first wall is another, flanked with protecting towers; that the City entrance is most jealously guarded by a strong gate first: then by a narrow way passing under a tower: then over a bridge. In all mediaeval castles the first thought was to make it impossible to carry the place by a rush. If we would restore the Tower of Queen Elizabeth to the Tower of Edward III. we must abolish all those buildings which stand on the north and east sides, with those called 'Lieutenants' Lodgings' on the south. The space on the north side of the Keep was the exercising ground: stables there must have been somewhere in this great area; the men at arms would live in the smaller towers. If you will study this plan carefully, you will understand the general arrangement of a mediaeval castle.

In the sixteenth century the place was no longer regarded as a fortress for the defence or the domination of the City. But the old forms were kept up: nobody was admitted who carried arms: the guard kept the gate: a garrison was maintained. Within, there was an armoury, the beginning of the splendid collection which is now shown: there was a Mint for the coining of money: there were collections of tapestry, saddles, bed furniture and robes belonging to the Crown: here were kept the Crown and sceptre and insignia: here was the Royal menagerie. Here were the rooms reserved for state criminals. It was no longer the Royal Palace but the sovereign sometimes occupied the Tower. James the First was here, for instance, in 1604.

Near the outer gate where is now the Refreshment Room were kept the King's lions. Henry I. began this menagerie which was continued until the year 1834. At the entrance of the fortress is the Bell Tower where Queen Elizabeth was once confined. The Water Gate called Traitors' Gate is under St. Thomas's Tower. The Beauchamp Tower has been the prison of, among others, Queen Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey. In the Great White Tower Richard II. abdicated in favour of Henry IV. In the vaults are dungeons, once the prison of Guy Fawkes. In the Chapel the newly made Knights of the Bath watched their armour all night long. The collection of arms contains examples of weapons and armour of every age. In the Church of St. Peter ad Vincula you will find the graves of the unfortunate Princes, Queens, and nobles who have been executed for State offences. Nothing, except the Royal tombs of Westminster, so much helps to prove the reality of History, as this collection of graves and slabs and tablets in this little church. And here were kept the Crown jewels about which many a chapter might be written.

But to study the Tower of London one must visit it with the History of England in hand. Hither were brought all the State prisoners: here they were confined: here they were executed. Every tower, every stone reminds one of sufferers and criminals and traitors and innocent victims. Do not, however, forget that this Tower was built for the restriction of the liberties of the people. That purpose has been defeated. The liberties have grown beyond what could ever have been hoped while the privileges of the Crown, which this Tower was built to protect and to enlarge, have been restricted beyond the greatest fears of the mediaeval kings.



18. THE TOWER OF LONDON.

PART II.

Of all the prisoners who suffered death at the termination of their captivity in the Tower, there is none whose fate was so cruel as that of Lady Jane Grey. Her story belongs to English history. Recall, when next you visit the Tower, the short and tragic life of this young Queen of a nine days' reign.

She was not yet eighteen when she was beheaded, not through any fault of her own, but solely because her relationship to the Crown placed her in the hands of men who used her for their own political purposes. She was the second cousin of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. Her grandmother was the sister of Henry VIII., widow of Louis XII. of France, and wife of Charles, Duke of Suffolk. The young King on his deathbed was persuaded to name her as his successor. She was sixteen years of age: she was already married to Lord Guilford Dudley, son of the Duke of Northumberland: when she was proclaimed Queen. Nine days after the proclamation she was a prisoner. On the 8th of July she was acknowledged Queen by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen: on the 10th she was taken by water from Greenwich to the Tower, and proclaimed Queen in the City: on the 17th another proclamation was made of Queen Mary, and her reign was over. But the Tower she was never more to leave.

On the 13th of November--after five months of suspense--she was tried for high treason with Cranmer, her husband Lord Guilford, and her husband's brother, Lord Ambrose. They were all four found guilty, and condemned to death--their judges being the very men who had sworn allegiance to her as Queen. It would seem that Mary had no desire to carry out the sentence: Cranmer she reserved for a more cruel death than that of beheading--he was to be burned as a heretic. The other three, two boys and a girl, it would be dangerous to execute on account of the popular sympathy their death would awaken. They were therefore sent back to the Tower. Probably it was intended that Lady Jane, at least, should pass the rest of her life in honourable captivity, as happened later on to Arabella Stuart. But the rebellion of Wyatt showed that her name could still be used as a cry in favour of a Protestant succession. It was therefore resolved to put both husband and wife to death. What further harm the young Lord Guilford Dudley could do is not apparent. Even then the Queen's advisers shrank from exhibiting on Tower Hill the spectacle of a young and beautiful girl, taken forth to be beheaded because certain hot-headed partizans had used her name. She was executed therefore within the verge of the Tower itself, on the so-called 'Green.'

'The Green' is a place where no grass will grow--it used to be said--on account of the blood that had been