Chapter XV: Part 15

Middle Tower is the outwork of Byward Tower, and a barbican covering the landward entrance to the fortress. It stands on the counterscarp of the ditch, at the outer end of the bridge, and was originally enveloped by a special ditch of its own, a loop from the main ditch of the place, filled up in the eighteenth century. In design and execution it resembles closely Byward Tower, though rather smaller, its breadth being 40 feet, and its height 30 feet from the roadway. It is evidently of the date of Byward, and like it was open at the rear. It also has been cased with Portland stone. Its portal has a double portcullis, gateway, vertical holes, side loops and lodges, and its central part is ceiled with timber. In neither tower is there now any trace of a drawbridge. The lodges are tolerably perfect; the stair in the north-east angle is in use, and corresponds to the Byward oratory; and in the south-east turret is a lobby and a garderobe, and above these a chamber 7 feet by 8 feet 6 inches, and again on the leads another chamber 7 feet 4 inches by 10 feet 10 inches.

Between the two gatehouses the ditch is traversed by a stone bridge, 130 feet long, and at the narrowest 20 feet wide. As the towers are not precisely opposite, the line of the bridge is broken by a slight zigzag. In the centre appears to have been an opening of 20 feet, now a stone arch, once the place of a drawbridge, as shown in old drawings.

The Quay does not appear to have had any permanent parapet wall, which indeed would have interfered with its uses. It was sufficiently commanded by the defences of the outer ward. It was probably the work of Henry III., in the twelfth of whose reign it is first mentioned, and called “Kaia Regis”; and John de Crumbwell, custos 8–9 Edward III., had then an order for 300 alder poles from Windsor forest for repairing it. The quay is in length about 1,130 feet, that being the full frontage of the Tower.

_The Ditch._—This, by far the most formidable of the defences of the Tower, varies in breadth from 100 feet on the east to 110 feet on the north, and 120 feet on the west or City side. Along the south or river front it is only 40 feet broad, probably because on that side it was covered by the wharf, the narrow limits of which did not permit any great force of assailants to be drawn up upon it; besides which the tower covering Traitors’ Gate, and the two small postern bridges which it was convenient to have towards the wharf and river, did not allow any great breadth of ditch.

The ditch was not only broad, but of great depth, so that when filled to the level of high water it was scarcely to be passed, and indeed when the water was low, the mud which accumulated there, and which made it of late years an unhealthy nuisance, must have been quite as formidable as a defence. Nevertheless, care was taken to cleanse it, and the “Liber Albus” informs us that, in the reign of Edward III., the penalty for bathing in the Tower fosse, or in the Thames near the Tower, was death! (vol. i., p. xlix.) Its exterior circuit is computed at 3,156 feet.

Also, from the great height of the ground to the west and north, the counterscarp is so very high as to be in itself a considerable obstacle to crossing the ditch, although, no doubt, this was in other respects advantageous to besiegers. Besides the main bridge, the ditch was crossed by St. Thomas’s Tower and the dam between Galleyman and Iron Gate, all of which served to hold up the water. There were also the posterns of Iron Gate, Byward, and Cradle Tower.

No doubt the Conqueror’s ditch, even when deepened by Longchamp, was fed by the Thames; and the water rose and fell with the tide. The intervention of the wharf and the St. Thomas’s sluice-gate were devised to make the water in the ditch independent of the tide, and thus add materially to the strength of the defences. The ditch was drained and its bottom raised and levelled by the Duke of Wellington during his constabulate. There are seen in the modern brick revetment of the counterscarp a number of walled-up arches, resembling sewer-mouths, which appear to have been intended to facilitate the mining the glacis in the event of a siege.

The outwork in advance of Middle Tower, though its ditch is filled up, and its other buildings removed, is still indicated by a line of stockades, which contain the ticket-office and a small engine-house. Here stood the Lion Tower, and the Royal Menagerie; and this whole _tête-de-pont_ was further protected by a smaller tower and drawbridge of its own, shown in some of the early drawings.

Lions were a part of the royal state, and lodged in the Tower bulwark, in the reign of Henry I. The Emperor Frederick, in 1235, sent Henry II. three leopards; and, in 1252, Henry III. received a white bear from Norway, for whose sustenance, with his keeper, the sheriffs of London provided fourpence daily, with a muzzle and iron chain, to keep him when “extra aquam,” and a stout cord to hold him when a-fishing in the Thames. In 1254, Louis of France sent the king an elephant. He was brought from Sandwich to the Tower, where the sheriffs were to build him a strong and suitable house, 40 feet by 20 feet, and to support him and his keeper. Edward I. and Edward II. kept lions here. At a time when the allowance for an esquire was one penny per day, a lion had a quarter of mutton and three-halfpence for the keeper; and, afterwards, sixpence was the lion’s allowance; the same for a leopard, and three-halfpence for the keeper. In 16 Edward III., there were a lion and a lioness, a leopard, and two cat-lions. In 1543, the Duke of Najara saw here four large and fierce lions, and two leopards. The menagerie was finally closed about the year 1830. Its establishment on this particular spot was probably due to Henry III.

The whole outward space was, in 1597, called the Bulwark, and sometimes the Spur-yard.

HISTORY.

Having decided to build an “Arx Palatina,” and having some years’ experience of the value of the proposed site as a temporary camp, the Conqueror at length determined to erect a regular castle, and entrusted the work to Gundulf, a monk of Bec, who, in 1077, soon after his arrival in England, was consecrated Bishop of Rochester.

Gundulf brought with him from Normandy some reputation as an architect, which vocation he pursued in this country. Rochester Keep, that strong but graceful tower, placed so judiciously above the ancient passage of the Medway, and long attributed to the bishop, is now known to be of later date; and the only existing buildings, besides the White Tower, which can safely be attributed to him, are the north tower of Rochester Cathedral, parts of the old crypt, and perhaps a small part of its west front; also the very perfect and unaltered shell of Malling Keep, known as St. Leonard’s Tower; possibly the broad, massive tower of the adjacent church, and, it may be, the Norman portions of that of Dartford. These remains, however, the White Tower, and the testimony of many generations, may be regarded as sufficient for the confirmation of his fame.

A direct evidence for the employment of Gundulf upon the White Tower is afforded by the “Textus Roffensis,” written about 1143, or within eighty years of the Conquest, and printed by Hearne. This record preserves incidentally the fact that Gundulf, while so employed, lodged at the house of Eadmer Anhœnde, a burgess of London, and a donor to the bishop’s church at Rochester, where he directed his body and that of his wife to be buried, and to have an annual obit.[5]

Gundulf was appointed bishop in 1077, and probably his first attention was given to his cathedral, so that it is supposed he did not commence the Tower until 1078, up to which time the ground was occupied by certain temporary defences.

Gundulf reached the age of eighty-four, and lived till 1108, that is, through the reigns of the Conqueror and Rufus, and to the ninth of Henry I.; it is, therefore, certain that he lived to see the keep completed, perhaps by Rufus; and he most probably made some progress in the walls of the _enceinte_, and the buildings of the palace, and perhaps of the Wakefield Tower.

The fortress designed by the Conqueror no doubt included very much of the space within the present walls. Less would scarcely suffice to contain a citadel, a palace, and an arsenal; and the liberties were evidently of no greater area than was necessary.

The west boundary line runs but a few yards outside the counterscarp of the ditch, and includes only what may be called a narrow glacis, and nothing of the open space or esplanade usually reserved around a fortress. It is, however, probable that no permanent exterior defences were executed by the Conqueror, and that those first commenced were the curtains from the Wakefield to the present Broad Arrow Tower, and the cross walls of the Wardrobe Gallery and Cold Harbour, which, with the keep, included the space set apart for the palace. This was for many centuries known as the inner ward; and the Wardrobe and Lanthorn Towers and those of the Cold Harbour Gatehouse, all now destroyed, are represented in the reign of Elizabeth as cylindrical, and resembling in design the Wakefield Tower, which is late Norman. It is, therefore, probable that the old inner or palace ward was first completed.

The rest of the _enceinte_, forming what is now known as the inner ward, could not, however, have been much later. According to the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” Gervase, and Le Livere, Rufus was, in 1097, building about the Tower a wall of sufficient magnitude, with the new hall at Westminster, to be the cause of heavy taxation, and the subject of general discontent, augmented, no doubt, by the impregnable character of his work. The existing curtain of the inner ward, being from 9 feet to 12 feet thick, from 39 feet to 40 feet high, and of sound but rude masonry, cannot be later than John, by which reign the wall of Rufus could not have fallen into decay. It is far more probable, and quite consistent with the dimensions and character of the work, that this was the actual wall commenced by Rufus, and upon which he was employed in 1097.

Bell Tower, indeed, which seems to bond into the curtain, and the base of which presents masonry very like that of Wakefield, is octagonal, and its vaulting can scarcely be earlier than John; but Devereux Tower, which is cylindrical outside, and has round-headed recesses in its polygonal basement chamber, may be as old as Wakefield, and therefore in substance the work of Rufus. The vaulting is later, but both may have been, as at Wakefield, taken down to the first floor at a later period, to which the vaulting may belong. Beauchamp, Bowyer, and all the other towers on this wall are evidently later insertions; but the wall itself, where it remains, as on the west and part of the east and south fronts, is of a very early character, and not unlike the wall of John at Corfe and the earlier one attributed to Robert Consul at Cardiff.

Most of the chroniclers record a violent storm that swept over London towards the close of the eleventh century. Le Livere dates it Friday, 27th October, and Malmesbury, 28th November, 1091, and says it unroofed St. Mary-le-Bow, and destroyed 600 houses, as houses then were.

Stowe adds that the White Tower was damaged “by tempest and winde sore shaken,” and that it was repaired by Rufus and Henry I.; but he gives no authority for this statement, which the extreme solidity of the building renders very improbable. The outworks, however, both wall and towers, if in course of construction, with scaffolding up, might very well have suffered severely.

The Tower, therefore, of the close of the reign of Rufus, and of those of Henry I. and Stephen, was probably composed of the White Tower with a palace ward upon its south-east side, and a wall, probably that we now see, and certainly along its general course, including what is now known as the inner ward. No doubt there was a ditch, but probably not a very formidable one.

Ralph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, and the faithful and rapacious minister of Rufus,—“pacitator Ranulphus, vir pessimus,”—by his severe exactions greatly promoted the works of the Tower. Singularly enough, he is the first person known to have been imprisoned there. Henry, on his accession, and by the advice of his council, 15th August, 1100, shut up Flambard in the Tower. Palgrave says he was lodged in the uppermost or council-chamber of the White Tower, under the custody of Walter de Magnaville, the hereditary constable. Probably his imprisonment was only intended to satisfy the popular cry, for two shillings, at that time a considerable sum, was allowed for his daily sustenance. He employed it, as is said, in feasting his keepers; and having received a rope in a flagon, took advantage of their drunken state to let himself down from the window of the south gallery, on the night of the 4th February, 1101, taking his pastoral staff with him. The rope proved too short for the descent of 65 feet, and he was injured by a fall, but he escaped in safety to Normandy, and, as is well known, lived to recover his see of Durham, where he completed the cathedral, added a moat to the Palatine castle, founded Norham on the Tweed, built Framwell Gate bridge, and endowed the hospital of Kepyer. The Tower was probably from the first a state prison, for in 1106 the Earl of Mortaigne, taken with Robert Duke of Normandy by Henry I., was, says Eadmer, shut up there. The Pipe Roll of 21 Henry I. records “£17. 0s. 6d., inoperatione Turris Lond.”

In the time of Stephen the Tower was regarded as impregnable. Geoffrey, grandson of Geoffrey de Magnaville, the companion of the Conqueror, and the third hereditary constable, was created Earl of Essex by the king, who in 1140 kept Whitsun in the Tower. “Eodem anno, 1140, in Pentecoste resedit Rex Londiniæ in Turri, tantum modo Episcopo Sagiensi presente: cæteri vel fastidierunt, vel timuerunt venire.” [R. de Hoveden.] The new earl proved false, and shifted his allegiance to the empress, who, by charter in 1141, confirmed him in his earldom and the constableship.

When the power of Maud declined, the citizens, to whom Geoffrey was as odious as his fortress, laid siege to it. Their efforts were so unsuccessful that on one occasion the earl made a raid as far as Fulham, and captured the bishop.

In 1143 the earl trusted himself in the royal presence at St. Alban’s, depending on the king’s word. The temptation to obtain the Tower was too great,—“magis ex necessitate quam honestate,”—he was detained, and the Tower was his ransom. Stephen held it until 1153, close upon the conclusion of his reign, when, by the Treaty of Winchester, he gave it up to Richard de Lacy, the Justiciary, who was to hold it until Stephen’s death, when it was to pass to Henry, which accordingly was done in 1154. It is clear, therefore, that at that time the fortifications of the Tower were both complete and strong; and this, in the absence of a wet ditch, which it will be shown did not then exist, could scarcely be the case with walls of inferior strength to those now seen.

Henry II. is said to have placed Becket in command of the Tower, the government of which had ceased to be hereditary. But there is no proof of this, or that Becket repaired it; though at a later period, indeed, one of his demands, as archbishop, was the custody of Rochester Castle and the Tower. By this time “London’s lasting shame” had attained its gloomy reputation, and Fitz-Stephen describes the “Arx Palatina” as “great and strong, with encircling walls rising from a deep foundation, and built with mortar tempered with the blood of beasts.”

The Pipe Rolls of this reign contain frequent entries of large sums issued for the repair of the king’s houses in the Tower, his chapel, and his gaol. In 2 Henry II., 6s. 1d. was paid for carrying the king’s breastplates to the Tower; but the regular series of accounts does not begin until 13 Henry II., and ends with 34. The entries for Westminster and the Tower are also much mixed up together, though sometimes distinct. Thus in 13 Henry II. the king’s houses in the two places and the queen’s chamber cost £64, and, in 19 Henry II., £60 was paid for the repairs of the Tower and of the houses in it. In the preceding year the king’s houses in the bailey of the Tower cost £21. In 20 Henry II., Alnod, the engineer, had £6. 13s. 4d. for works at the Tower, and afterwards 100s. Similar payments continually occur, sometimes for lead for the repairs of the chapel, sometimes for carriage of timber and planks, sometimes for the kitchen, the gateways of the gaol, the repairs of the houses, and sometimes for the Tower itself.

The necessity for each expenditure is often certified to by the view of two officers, Edward Blund and William Magnus; the works were executed by the engineer Alnod; and the brief, authorising payment, was signed either by the king himself, or by Richard de Lucy or Ranulph de Glanville, no doubt as justiciars. The sums paid varied from 1s. 4d. to £64, and the total for the thirteen years of which the rolls remain, is £215. 15s. and 50 marks.

When in February, 1190, Cœur de Lion departed from Normandy to the East, he placed the Tower in charge of William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely and Chancellor, sharing the power of chief justiciary with Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, to which the Pope added the office of legate. These combined honours seem to have turned Longchamp’s head. Always of intense activity of character, he spurned all colleagues in his power. His first act on reaching England seems to have been to provide for his personal security by girdling the Tower with a wall and deep ditch, which he proposed to fill from the Thames. In this, however, he failed, after spending a large sum of money.[6]

The wall was probably that of the outer ward, which would be necessary to retain the banks of the ditch, and the commencement of that which still remains. The failure could scarcely be in the admission of the Thames, which required only a certain depth of excavation, but was rather in the retaining it full at low tide, so as to make it really a wet ditch. This important object was attained in a later reign, by a new and ingenious arrangement. In his excavations, Longchamp encroached upon land belonging to Trinity Church, East Smithfield, and took a mill from St. Katherine’s Hospital. These trespasses were much complained of, and seem to have been the same on account of which a compensating rent-charge was afterwards paid by Edward I. There is still a small burial-ground on the east glacis of the Tower, which is said to be a part of the land then taken. There was also an earlier trespass on Church lands by the constables, for Geoffrey, Earl of Essex, took by force from Trinity Priory, in East Smithfield, land near the Tower to make a vineyard, which was not restored to that church until towards 1137.

Longchamp, whose patent directed the lieges to obey him, even as the king himself, commenced by imprisoning Bishop Pudsey, his rival justiciar. His unpopularity was fostered by Prince John, who headed a party against him, and took occasion of his ill-treatment of the Archbishop of York to summon Longchamp to appear before a council at Loddon, by Reading. Longchamp refused compliance, but retired before John’s superior force to London, where he entered the Tower with all his train, pressed by the citizens, who took part against him and blockaded the fortress by land and water. John, with many barons and bishops, reached London on the 8th of October, 1191, and held a council in the chapter-house, in St. Paul’s Churchyard, on the 9th, summoning the people by the sound of the bell. Here the Archbishop of Rouen and William Mareschal produced Richard’s declaration from Messina, limiting the independent powers of the justiciar, whom the meeting then deposed by acclamation. Four earls and as many bishops conveyed this sentence to Longchamp, who fell senseless upon the floor. On the following morning, at an early hour, John assembled an immense host in East Smithfield, a great green plain near the Tower, and summoned the justiciar to a parley. He surrendered upon terms at once, far too soon for his credit, and marched out with his followers and household stuff to Bermondsey, whence with much difficulty and through various dangers he reached Normandy.[7] The Archbishop of Rouen then took charge of the Tower; but the chancellor, as is well known, retained or resumed his office, and on November 21, 1194, the well-known William Fitz-Osbert impleaded his brother Richard in the Curia Regis (“Rot. Cur. Regis.” xi., xvii.) for having said, “In recompense for the money taken from me by the chancellor within the Tower of London, I would lay out forty marks to purchase a chain in which to hang both king and chancellor.”

Various entries in the Pipe Rolls of Richard show that the usual repairs of the Tower, and especially of the royal apartments therein, still went on. Unfortunately, although the sums are given, the detail of their outlay is very generally omitted.

The entries extend from the first to the tenth of the reign, and relate to nine years, during which about £610 was spent on the Tower and its houses. The recipient was sometimes Wm. Puincell, the constable; at others, Jordan de Turri, Richard le Duc, John Fitz-Erlecum, and others. Sometimes under the king’s brief, sometimes the chancellor’s. In one year, lime cost £46. 9s. 6d. In the first of the king, 50 marcs were spent upon the “Royal Chapel in the Tower.” The ditches are mentioned 5 Richard I.

Longchamp’s reign was so short that it is difficult to understand how he managed to execute as much as he undoubtedly did. The rolls of the early years of Richard I. do not indeed show above one or two hundred pounds of outlay, but the chancellor had the command of other funds; and one cause of his excessive unpopularity with the citizens was the avidity with which he took upon himself to tax them.

Prince John, when he succeeded to the throne in 1199, was not inattentive to the wants of the Tower. In his two first years, Elias, the engineer, was employed upon the king’s houses and works, and similar entries appear in the fifth, tenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth years. In the sixteenth the sum was considerable—£117. 15s. 8d.; and in the seventeenth the charge, £12, is for building the mud or “clay wall between the Tower [precinct] and city,” which wall is often referred to in later surveys. On the whole, the Pipe Rolls of the reign are scanty as regards the Tower, but they are in some degree replaced by entries upon the Mise, Close, and Patent Rolls, which show that it was kept up as a royal residence, and that the king occasionally stayed there.

In 1209 and 1210, 9s. 4d. were given in alms to one hundred poor there; and in the latter year Osmund, a knight bound for Poictou, received a gift of ten marcs, and, to buy a horse, a hundred shillings from the king. This was given in the “Church of St. Peter at the Tower of London”; and is the earliest known mention of that building. Here also, on Sunday, the morrow of St. Philip and Jacob, Steffan, the messenger of the emperor, received half a marc on his return to his lord, and other payments were made here.

In 1212 the Archdeacon of Durham and Philip de Ulecote are ordered to send in all haste to London thirty carratas (cartloads) of lead for covering the Tower; and, in 1213, among orders for repairs for the castles of Rochester, Canterbury, and Guildford, is mention of carriage of timber and “busca” (faggots), for the works of the Castle of Dover and the Tower of London. It was about this time that the city ditch was deepened, and widened to a breadth of 200 feet. In 1215, Henry de Nevill was to supply ten oaks for the works at the Tower, five from within Havering Park and five from outside it.

It was also in 1215 that the barons seized upon London, and that the Tower was given over to be held by the Archbishop of Canterbury until Assumption Day as a pledge for the king’s performance of certain engagements. The rights of either party to the Tower were suspended, and the king was not to reinforce the garrison. The great charter was signed 15th June. The barons, however, continued virtually in possession until the arrival of the Dauphin, to whom it was given up in 1216, and by him held until he left the kingdom.

Mr. Hardy, in his valuable “Itinerary of King John,” shows that he executed instruments at the Tower upon seventy-two days during his reign of seventeen years and a half. In 1204, he was there 28–30th January, 27–30th May, 2–3rd November. In 1205, 28th April and 13–16th August. In 1207, 2nd July. In 1208, 21st January, 10th, 19th–21st February. In 1209, 9th October. In 1210, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 19th February, 2nd May, and 27th October. In 1211, 1–3rd and 18th April. In 1212, 18–20th May; 2–4th June; and 20–22nd September. In 1213, 16th and 17th April; and 21–23rd, 26–29th December. In 1214, 2–5th, 12th, 13th January; and 29th–31st October. In 1215, 1–6th and 14–18th March; and 19th April.

As Henry III. has usually been regarded as the builder of much of the Tower as it now stands, and did undoubtedly execute considerable works there, it will be convenient here to examine into the probable condition of the fortress at the time of his accession.

It has been shown, from structural evidence, that the Wakefield Tower, and probably the shell of Devereux Tower, and perhaps that of Bell Tower, are at least as old as the reign of John; and that there is great reason to regard the original Wardrobe and Lanthorn Tower and its curtains, and the Cold Harbour wall and Gate towers, and the contained palace, all now destroyed, as of the age of Wakefield Tower. Also, as St. Peter’s Church existed in the reign of John, and was “apud Turrim,” or within the walls, these, between the Bell and Devereux Towers, where they pass close to the church, were also then existing. We should thus have the wall of _enceinte_ of the present inner ward, from Lanthorn Tower to Wakefield, Bell, and Devereux Towers, as the extent of the fortress on the south and west fronts. The north curtain, now mostly destroyed, seems to have been of the same date as is the east curtain, though probably some of the towers upon these—the Bowyer, Jewel, Constable’s Broad Arrow, and Salt—are of later reigns.

Then there was the ditch deepened and widened by Longchamp, with a wall on the line of that of the present outer ward. The quay and the river front, from Iron Gate to Byward, with St. Thomas’s Tower, were not then constructed, nor was the Bloody or Gatehouse Tower. Probably the inner ward wall abutted direct upon the river shore.

Henry III. began his reign in 1216, and the attention of his prudent guardian, the “rector regis et regni,” seems at once to have been turned to the Tower. In 1217 the sheriff of Essex and Herts is to pay to Nicholas Rowland £10 for repairs of the king’s houses in the Tower; to which is added, in the next year, £8. 9s. 11d. and £19. 9s. 11d., also to the same Nicholas. About the same time (2 Henry III.) 6s. 1d. is paid for the transporting the king’s breastplates (loricas) to the Tower; 3 Henry III., £9. 13s. 1d. is paid for repairs of the king’s hall, and the broken wall of the chamber; and the houses within the ballium of the Tower are to be repaired upon the view and testimony of certain lawful men; and (5 Henry III.), at a cost of 17s., four tables “ad mensam,” for the use of the king, are to be placed in the Tower. The year before this (4 Henry III.), the Pleas of the Crown, in the City of London, were heard before the justices in the Tower.

In 1221, Peter, Bishop of Winchester, was to have £11. 10s. for the repairs of the king’s house, executed when the Tower was in his hands; and Richard de Munfitchet was to supply Stephen de Segrave, the constable, with timber of the best quality, from Havering, for planks for the completion of the “jarellum” [jarolium, barrier] about the Tower.

The king was there in person in these years, for his expenses for five days there, in 1219, were £19. 1s. 7¼d.; and next year 100 marcs were paid towards his expenses there during Lent, and 200 marcs repaid to Pandulph the legate, then Bishop of Norfolk, advanced on the same account. In that year, also, the king had at the Tower a supply of 10 lampreys, part of a debt due from the city of Gloucester to his lamprey-loving father.

1221 was a busy year at the Tower. Many military implements and stores, and seven cartloads of prisoners, were brought in by Alex. de Sabrichtsworth, from Biham, the surrendered castle of Wm. de Fortibus, at a cost of 5s. 10d. Henry was there 28th February and 5th March. The next year also included several accounts connected with the siege of Biham. The works were also continued. Stephen de Segrave had 30 marcs for the repairs of the ballium wall; and Peter de St. Edward, with Andrew Buckerell, the chamberlain, 70 marcs of the amerciament levied on the London vintners, for works at the Tower. 8th December, 1221, Nicholas Mazon, who made the well, had five marcs. Timber and materials were sent in by the sheriffs of Essex and Bucks.

In 1222, 8s. 1d. was paid for the repairs of the wardrobe in the king’s chamber at the Tower, and for making a chimney in the same, and 10s. for a robe for Robert le Champenies, clerk of the works. Chimneys in those days were not always flues within the wall, but shafts of wood, or other temporary material, placed against it.

7 Henry III., 1222–3. The Close Roll credits Richard Benger and Thomas Lamberde with £10. 12s. 1d., which they paid by the king’s precept to Peter of Poictou and his companions, keepers of the works of the “New Turrelle,” or turret, of the Tower of London, for the work of the said turret. Mr. Hugo applies this entry to the Bell Tower; it may, with equal or more probability, be applied to the superstructure of the Wakefield Tower.

Pandulph the legate appears to have been custos in 1223, and in that capacity entertained at the Tower John de Brienne, titular King of Jerusalem, and the Grand Master of the Hospital, then in England to promote a crusade. In this year the king acknowledged the receipt of “unum austurcum” (a goshawk) at the Tower. John de Monmouth and the vendors of “cableicium,” or underwood, in Dean Forest, out of the king’s gift thereof to the Priory of Llantony, are to find 40 chevrons for the repairs of the Tower; and the sheriffs of London are to restore the “palum coram postico,” or “gallows before the postern” of the Tower, and the gallows outside of the Tower. 26th May, 1224, the king’s crown was lodged in the Tower by the treasurer.

The Pipe Roll of 9 Henry III., 1224–5, contains various entries relating to the Tower:—34s. 1d. was paid for “pro husciis de cute et de feltrio [housings of hide and of felt or compressed wool, or gambeson], ad balistas Regis, etc., cooperiendas,” for housing the king’s balistæ which are in the Tower; and for iron and steel (ascero) delivered to the constable for the works there, 2 marcs. Also for charcoal (carbo), for the king’s smiths’ work there, 8s. 6d.; and to Thomas de Blunvill, 50 marcs for the king’s works; and for charcoal for making the king’s “quarells” (cross-bow bolts), &c., by “Thomas Faber” (the smith), in the Tower, 8s. 7d.; and for mending the king’s houses in the Tower, 29s. 7¼d.

In the tenth year, besides the sum of 42s. and 3s. 11d., for charcoal for works, Thos. de Blunvill received the value of £12. 3s. in six caretatis, or cartloads, of lead, “ad novam turrellam turris Lond: cooperiendam,” and four loads, value £8. 0s. 19d., for the same purpose; so that the lead on the roof of the new turret cost at least £20. 4s. 7d. At this time Blunvill had £40 per annum as custos.

In the two next years, 1226–8, 96s. 11d. was paid for charcoal, Thomas Faber being the master-workman; and Henry Fitz-Alchi had 100 marcs for the Tower works. For the three following years the rolls are silent. In 1232, Hubert de Burgh had a fee of £50 per annum as constable; and in 16 Henry III., 113s. 10d. was paid for iron, steel, and charcoal, purchased and delivered to Roger le Smith, in the Tower, for making quarells and other work.

In 1233, the Tower became the enforced residence of Isabel, the king’s sister, until her marriage with the Emperor Frederick, in 1235; and 28th April, 1236, Henry adopted the unusual course of adjourning a council of his magnates to the Tower. The assembly, as was to be expected, was but thinly attended, and in consequence was further adjourned to Westminster.

On 2nd March, 1238, 22 Henry III., the Liberate Roll contains an entry, which is repeated as follows in the corresponding Pipe Roll:—“Et in cameris Regis in turri Lond: reparandis et chimenee Camere Regine perficiendis et uno spiro de bordis bono et decenti faciendo inter cameram et capellam nove turrelle eiusdem turris prope aulam Regis versus tamisiam xvi_li._ iij_s._ viij_d._ per breve, etc.” “And for repairing the king’s chamber in the Tower of London, and completing the chimney in the queen’s chamber, and for making a good and fitting spur [partition] of boards between the chamber and chapel of the new turret of the same Tower, near the King’s Hall, towards the Thames, £16. 3s. 8d., by brief, &c.” This is one of the few notices of repairs the precise place of which can be identified. The new turret is undoubtedly the first floor of the Wakefield Tower, known to have been near the King’s Hall and towards the Thames, and of which the chapel, or oratory, still remains.

In the same 1238, 23rd November, the Liberate Roll shows the king to have ordered the constable to cause the walls of the queen’s chamber, “which is within our chamber at the Tower, to be whitewashed and pointed,” and within the pointings to be painted with flowers; “and to cause the drain of the privy chamber to be made in the fashion of a hollow column, as our beloved servant John of Ely shall more fully declare to thee.”

In the 24 Henry III. is a charge of £30. 16s. 4d. for purchasing and conveying to the Tower “una navata,” or shipload, of marble, and four shiploads of Purbeck marble, for the works of the Tower. It is only in the cills of the two windows of the sacrarium of St. Thomas’s Tower that Purbeck stone has been discovered in position; but much of this material remains upon the rampart walks and in other places in the fortress, whither, no doubt, much of it was imported in this reign, and especially at this time, for the works then in progress, which in 1239 were considerable. A good deal of Kentish rag was used, and both Ryegate and Caen stone for ashlar. Often the material for building was brought a great distance. Henry II. and Edward III. used Egremont stone for Windsor. Matt. Paris describes the treasury as well filled, which unusual condition, and looming troubles of the realm, probably disposed Henry to add to the security of his stronghold. The new works were unpopular in the city, the citizens fearing, and not without reason, that they would be employed in some way to their detriment. On this subject they addressed a remonstrance to the king, who assured them that the works were not intended to be employed to their injury. “I only,” said he, “imitate my brother, reputed a wiser man than I, in rebuilding my castles.”

It seems that a fine gateway and a wall were completed, but fell suddenly on St. George’s night (23rd April), 1240, and were immediately rebuilt by the king. A year later, in 1241, the same structures, or as much of them as had been rebuilt, again fell down, and this time the citizens found a supernatural reason for the event. On the night of the second fall, says Matt. Paris, a certain grave and reverend priest saw a robed archbishop, cross in hand, who gazed sternly upon the walls with which the king was then girdling the tower, and striking them sharply, asked, “Why build ye these?” on which the newly-built work fell as though shattered by an earthquake. The priest, too alarmed to accost the prelate, addressed himself to the shade of an attendant clerk, “Who, then, is the archbishop?” “St. Thomas the Martyr,” was the answer, “by birth a citizen, who resents these works, undertaken in scorn and to the prejudice of the citizens, and destroys them beyond the power of restoration.” On which the priest remarked, “What outlay and labour of the hands he has destroyed!” “Had it been,” said the clerk, “simply that the starving and needy artificers thence promised themselves food, it had been tolerable; but seeing that the works were undertaken, not for the defence of the realm, but to the hurt of the citizens, even had not St. Thomas destroyed them, they had been swept away utterly by St. Edmund, his successor.”

That night the priest told his tale, and next morning the walls about the tower, built at a charge of about 12,000 marcs, were seen upon the ground, to the surprise, but by no means to the grief, of the citizens, to whom they had been as a thorn in the eye. Notwithstanding the prediction of St. Thomas, the works were at once resumed, and this time with complete success.

No doubt the wall and gateway were St. Thomas’s Water-gate and the adjacent curtain along the south face of the fortress, and upon the bank of the river, where the wet ground and the treacherous character of the London clay, exposed more or less in the old city ditch and that of Longchamp, would render the archbishop’s task an easy one. The story may be taken to show that in 1239–40 Henry was engaged in extensive works about the Tower, including the outer ward wall and tower, the quay, and the present ditch; and the present works show that they were of sufficient importance to be replaced, at whatever cost, when destroyed by an accident. Probably the architect learned experience by the event; for it is remarkable that no serious mark of settlement from defective foundation has been observed either in the work of the outer ward or in any other part of the fortress, and this is more singular because part of the masonry must have traversed the line of the old city ditch. This stability is probably due to the great breadth of the foundations, and to the fact that the fortress contains no underground chambers, the towers below the ground level, and sometimes far above it, being solid.

The resumption of the works on the wall and west gateway did not lead to the neglect of the royal residence within. 24th February, 1240, 24 Henry III., the king, according to the Liberate Roll, thus addressed the custos of the works:—“We command you to cause the chamber of the queen, in the aforesaid tower, to be wainscotted without delay, and to be thoroughly whitened internally, and newly painted with roses; and to cause to be made a wall [partition] in the fashion of wainscot between the chamber and the wardrobe of the same, and let it be entirely covered externally with tile; and also cause one great chamber in the same tower to be entirely whitewashed and newly painted, and all the windows of the same chamber to be made anew with new wood and bolts and hinges, and to be painted with our arms, and barred with iron where needful. Moreover, repair and mend all the glass windows in the chapel of St. John the Baptist within the said tower, where necessary; and repair all the windows in the great chamber towards the Thames with new wood, with new bolts and hinges, and bar them well with iron; and in the corner of the same chamber make a great round turret towards the Thames, so that the drain of the last chamber may descend into the Thames; and make a new cowl on the top of the kitchen of the great tower.”

The Liberate Roll of the same year, January, 1240, orders “a mantel” to be painted in the Tower, with a personification of Winter with a sad visage and miserable contortions of the body.

And on the 10th December following (25 Henry III.) the keeper is further ordered, “To repair the granary within the same tower, &c., and to cause all the leaden gutters of the great tower, through which rain-water should fall from the summit of the same tower, to be carried down to the ground; so that the wall of the said tower, _which has been newly whitewashed_, may be in no wise injured by the dropping of rain-water, nor be easily weakened. And make on the same tower on the south side, at the top, deep alures of good and strong timber, entirely and well covered with lead, through which people may look even unto the foot of the said tower, and ascend, and better defend it, if need should be. And also whitewash the whole chapel of St. John the Evangelist in the same tower, and make in the same chapel three glass windows, one, to wit, on the north part, with a certain small figure of Mary holding her child; the other, on the south side, with the [subject of the] Trinity; and the third on the same south side, with St. John the Apostle and Evangelist; and paint the cross and beam beyond the altars of the same chapel, and with good colours. And cause to be made and painted two fair images, where they may be best and most decently made in the same chapel, one of St. Edward holding a ring and giving it to St. John the Evangelist. And whitewash all the old wall around our aforesaid tower.”

From these orders, we learn that the chapel in the White Tower was whitewashed, glazed, had three painted windows, and a painted beam and rood behind the altar, besides painted figures, no doubt in fresco, on the wall, of St. Edward and St. John the Evangelist. The great chamber towards the Thames, being enumerated in conjunction with the chapel, might be supposed to be the state-room in the White Tower; but “the great round turret towards the Thames, with the contained drain,” could not apply to the White Tower, nor indeed to any of the existing towers on the Thames front. It may have been the Lanthorn Tower.

The White Tower is spoken of as newly whitewashed. This was no doubt intended to make good any irregularities in the masonry, for 28 Henry III., the tower at Corfe was ordered to be pargetted with mortar where necessary, and the whole exterior to be whitewashed. It is not quite clear what were the alures, so minutely specified, on the top of the south front of the White Tower; probably a bretasche or hoarding, since no other work would enable the defenders to see the foot of the wall. It might have been supposed that at so great a height no extra defence from missiles would have been necessary, and supposing the inner ward to be taken, it would be from the higher ground on the north, rather than on the south side, that the effect of archery or warlike engines would be the greatest.

In this same 25 Henry III. Peter Bacun and Richard de Fresingfeld and their fellows, keepers of the Tower works, had £36; also £24. 40d. was paid for twenty breastplates and twenty halbergeons, purchased for the defence of the Tower, and delivered to the constable. So important were the works at this time that an order was made that “before closing the Exchequer the barons were to audit the accounts of the custos of the works of the king’s Tower of London.” In 26 Henry III. the chaplain ministering in the Tower chapel had 50s. per annum.

Among the regulations in use about this time were several relating to the legal position of the Tower, recorded in the Liber Albus. Thus, when the Exchequer was closed, the mayor was to be presented at the Tower, and the Pleas of the City with the crown were sometimes held there; and when this was the case the city barons were to place their own “janitors” outside the Tower gate, and the king’s janitor was to be on the inside. They further had an “ostiarius” outside the door of the hall where the pleas were held, to introduce the barons, and the king had an “ostiarius inside.” The hall was no doubt the building afterwards superseded by the office of Ordnance, and the entrance to which is thought to have been by the modernised doorway close east of the Wakefield Tower.

The next entry discovered is upon the Liberate Roll, 29 Henry III., 3rd December, 1244, by which the constable of the Tower is ordered to deliver to Edward Fitz-Otho as much lead as shall be necessary to execute certain specified works at Westminster. It was in this year that Griffith-ap-Llewelyn, in attempting to escape by a rope from his prison in the Tower, fell and broke his neck. Griffith was corpulent, and the White Tower whence he let himself down was lofty. His rope was composed of bed linen and the like, and broke. 30th April, the king publicly declares this unfortunate accident, and attributes the neglect to the attendants, whose duty it was to take charge of the prisoner.

31 Henry III., 1246–7, the constable had sixty marcs for constructing “quandam turrellam,” a certain turret; and next year forty marcs more were paid for making a certain turret, a privy chamber, and other works. 33 Henry III., fourteen cartloads of lead were purchased for £32. 9s. 10d., and delivered to Peter Blund, the constable.

In 34 Henry III. the Pipe Roll shows Edward of Westminster and the constable to have had sixty marcs for Tower works, and the keepers thirty marcs for repairing and covering the king’s houses and for lead for the works. Next year, 1250–1, ten marcs went for repairing and covering walls and turrets, and £4. 8s. 6d. for two loads of lead for the same operation upon the king’s houses.

37 Henry III., Adam de Lamburn, master of the Tower works, had £10, and the keepers, also for works, £30, and Adam again £12, and next year the keepers for works fifty marcs more. 39 Henry III., 1254–5, £22. 20d. was paid for a house for the king’s elephant, 40 feet long by 20 feet wide. This was a present from the King of France, and is said by Matt. Paris to have been the first elephant seen north of the Alps. There was also paid for repairs of houses and turrets, £59. 6s. 2d. Next year, £52. 11s. 3d. was paid for works begun by the sheriff of the year preceding, and for Tower shortcomings £37. 2s. 9d.; and 41 Henry III., £90. 14s. 9d. for stones for completing the already commenced Tower quay, and for the Great Wardrobe and other deficiencies.

42 Henry III., 1257–8, two sums of 101s. 8d. and £4. 12s. 6d. were paid for lead gutters and other repairs; and 43 Henry III., £36. 3s. 8d. for repairs of the king’s houses, and for making a new stable and repairing an old one, and gutters, and a “claustura,” or partition, for the same tower, £17. 15s. 7d.

This was the year, 1258, in which, under the Provisions of Oxford, the barons seized the Tower and placed in it Hugh le Bigod as custos. There was in this year a brief,—“In emendacionem planchicii[8] turris Lond: et turrella ejusdem turris versus aquam cooperienda, etc.” Henry soon afterwards, by the permission of the pope, broke faith with his subjects, and regained the Tower, where he was resident in February, 1261, and ordered 40s. to Theodore de Castell for iron for the King’s Tower works, taken from him.

The circumstances of the country forced the king into active measures for the conservation of the fortress. He spent Christmas, 1260, there with his queen, and employed the money at his command in completing the defences. Probably it was about this time that the water-gate was ready, and the tidal ditch converted into a wet moat. Matt. Paris mentions the efforts now made to strengthen the place, and how the king at this time invited the citizens to swear fidelity to him, and to take service in his army then mustering outside the city. He also again named the Tower as the place of meeting for a Parliament to be holden 21st February, 1261, 45 Henry III.

The councillors did not respond to the summons. The king kept Easter in the fortress, whither the bailiffs of Gloucester were directed, 18th March, to send up daily as many lampreys as they could take; and, 17th April, the bailiffs of Waltham were to supply 60s. worth of good fine bread and loaves of four for a penny, and to send them to the royal pantler at the Tower for the usual dole on Easter eve. Similar perquisitions were addressed to the bailiffs of Barking and Dartford, to those of Kingston and Watford, to the extent of 40s., and to the mayor and sheriffs of London to £20. In all, £33 worth of bread was to be distributed. There were also orders for 164 tunics on the part of the king and queen, to be delivered to the royal almoner, and 21 tunics on the part of the royal children; all to be distributed to the poor according to custom. Henry remained at the Tower till about the 20th April.

Prince Edward returned to England in that year, but did not act with his father, whose advisers he distrusted. The king, however, seems to have held the Tower, and kept Christmas of 1261 within its walls. Thence, leaving John Mansell in charge, he went to Dover, and so by Rochester to Winchester for Whitsuntide. There, however, the barons prepared to seize him, and he retired to the Tower, where he remained till October. Christmas of 1262 he again spent at the Tower.

After some time passed beyond sea, and a Christmas at Canterbury, Henry failed to meet his enemies at Worcester, and returned, 47 Henry III., to the Tower, where, with his queen, Prince Edward, and the King of the Romans, he consulted with the mayor and aldermen of London on the subject of de Montfort, and soon afterwards with that nobleman himself. One result was the placing Hugh le Despenser in charge of the Tower. It was in this year that the queen, leaving the Tower by water to join the prince at Windsor, was hooted at and pelted by the populace on the bridge, and forced to put back. In the same year, John Sperling, at a cost of £7, erected a “palicium,” or palisade, between the Tower and the city wall; and two years later he had altogether £25. 10s. 3d. for covering-in the king’s houses, repairing the king’s garderobe, &c.

Henry was again at the Tower in 1265, after the battle of Evesham; and in 1268 the fortress, then commanded by Hugh Fitz-Otho, and containing the papal legate, Ottobon, was besieged by Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester. The Jews, who with their families had been harboured in the Tower, contributed personally to its defence. Gloucester threw up earthworks and attempted a blockade; but in May and June, Henry, approaching by Windsor and Stratford, encamped there for two months, and, throwing in a reinforcement, brought out the legate by the south postern towards the river, and established him with the army at Stratford, forcing Gloucester to sue for peace.[9]