The Living Tower of London
"Hence with him to the Tower," declares King Edward in Shakespeare's ' Henry
VI', Part 3. The Bard's Elizabethan audiences knew exactly what that meant, and
all that it implied.
The 12-acre complex of buildings known as the Tower of London was not erected
as a prison, nor were any formal jail facilities ever built in it. Yet since
construction began about 1078, some 1,700 prisoners have been hurled into its
basements,
locked in its towers, or, for those of influence, opulently housed in its most
comfortable rooms.
One day I leafed through the list of prisoners, drawn from the archives. For
every Thomas More, Walter Raleigh, or Anne Boleyn there were hundreds of other
unfortunates who passed through the gates to an ominous unknown. "1241: William
de Marish. Conspiracy against Henry III. Locked in chains, then disemboweled and
quartered"
"1441: Margery Jourdayn. Treason, witch-craft and sorcery. Burned...as a
heretic".
"1302: Sir William de la Pole. Rebellion against Henry VII. ...held in the
Tower, almost 38 years"
"1746: Lady Teresa Traquair... became a voluntary prisoner.... to be with her
husband."
The Tower is today, and has always been, dominated by the original structure
at its centre, the 90-foot-high White Tower begun as a palace stronghold by
William the Conqueror. Some of its stones William had brought from
Normandy.
The monument now draws some 2 million tourists each year. But few notice the
long lines of private homes built against the inner face of the 13th-century
outer wall. Here live most of the 41 yeoman warders, better known as beefeaters.
Some say the nickname, coined in the 1670s, has to do with an early
responsibility of testing the king's food to protect him from poisoning, It was
during the reign of Edward VI, in 1550, that the Tower warders were made
extraordinary members of the Yeomen of the Guard, an elite corps of 200 that
served as his personal security force. In the ensuing centuries the yeoman
warders have been bodyguards, Tower jailers, and, for the past 300 years or so,
tour guides with a flair.
"National Geographic" No4, October 1993.
