Part 9
You are next shewn what your guides call their school of apes, which consists of two apes from Turky, and two Egyptian night-walkers. Of the largest of these creatures they will tell you abundance of surprizing stories. There are also one or two man tygers, a man of the wood, a Guinea racoon, much more beautiful than those brought from America; a jackal, a fine tyger cat, two large hyenas, a male and a female, and a very uncommon beast which the keeper calls the whistler of the woods. This is a beautiful little creature of the size of a badger, brought from Guinea, and receives her name from her counterfeiting in the woods the whistling and chirping of birds, by which she allures them to her, and so makes them her prey.
These animals are all regularly fed with proper food, and attended with all possible care.
But to proceed; the next place worthy of observation is the Mint, which comprehends near one third of the Tower, and contains houses for all the officers belonging to the coinage. See the article MINT.
_The white Tower_, on passing the principal gate you see the White Tower, built, as has been already said, by William the Conqueror. This is a large, square, irregular stone building, situated almost in the centre, no one side answering to another, nor any of its watch towers, of which there are four at the top, built alike. One of these towers is now converted into an observatory.
The building itself consists of three very lofty stories, under which are spacious and commodious vaults, chiefly filled with saltpetre. It is covered on the top with flat leads, from whence there is an extensive and delightful prospect.
In the first story are two noble rooms, one of which is a small armoury for the sea service, it having various sorts of arms very curiously laid up, for above 10,000 seamen. In the other room are many closets and presses, all filled with warlike engines and instruments of death. Over this are two other floors, one principally filled with arms; the other with arms and other warlike instruments, as spades, shovels, pick-axes, and cheveaux de Frize. In the upper story are kept match, sheep-skins, tanned hides, &c. and in a little room called Julius Cæsar’s chapel are deposited some records, containing perhaps the ancient usages and customs of the place. In this building are also preserved models of the new invented engines of destruction that have from time to time been presented to the government.
On the top of one of the towers is a large cistern or reservoir for supplying the whole garrison with water; it is about seven feet deep, nine broad, and about sixty in length, and is filled from the Thames by means of an engine very ingeniously contrived for that purpose.
_The Spanish Armoury._ Near the south-west angle of the White Tower is the Spanish armoury, in which are deposited the spoils of what was vainly called the Invincible Armada, in order to perpetuate to latest posterity the memory of that signal victory obtained by the English over the whole naval power of Spain in the reign of Philip II. which will ever render the glorious name of Queen Elizabeth dear to Britons: for of 132 ships that arrived in the British channel; scarce 70 of them returned home, and of 30,000 men on board, upwards of 20,000 were either killed, drowned, or made prisoners in England, such was the fate of this vain-glorious enterprize!
The trophies preserved here of this memorable victory, with some other curiosities are,
1. A Spanish battle-ax, so contrived as to strike four holes in a man’s skull, at once; it has besides a pistol in its handle with a match-lock.
2. The Spanish General’s halbert, covered with velvet. All the nails are double gilt, and on the top is the pope’s head, curiously engraven.
3. The Spanish morning star; a destructive engine in the form of a star; of which there were many thousands on board, and all of them with poisoned points; designed to strike at the English, in case they boarded them.
4. Thumb screws, of which there were several chests full on board the Spanish fleet. The use they were intended for is said to have been to extort confession from the English where their money was hid, had they prevailed.——Certain it is, that; after the defeat, the whole conversation of the court and country turned upon the discoveries made by the Spanish prisoners of the racks, the wheels, and the whips of wire, with which they were to scourge the English of every rank, age, and sex. The most noted hereticks were to be put to death; those who survived were to be branded on the forehead with a hot iron; and the whole form of government, both in church and state, was to be overturned.
5. A Spanish poll-ax, used in boarding of ships.
6. Spanish halberts, or spears, some of them curiously engraved and inlaid with gold.
7. Spanish spadas, or long swords, poison’d at the points, so that if a man received but ever so slight a wound, it would prove certain death.
8. Spanish cravats, as they are called; these are engines of torture, made of iron, and put on board to lock the feet, arms, and heads of English Hereticks together.
9. Spanish bilboes, also made of iron, to yoke the English prisoners two and two.
10. Spanish shot, which are of four sorts; spike-shot, star-shot, chain-shot, and link-shot; all admirably contrived, as well for the destruction of the masts and rigging of ships, as for sweeping the men off the decks.
11. The banner, with a crucifix upon it, which was to have been carried before the Spanish General. Upon it is the Pope’s benediction before the Spanish fleet sailed; for the Pope, it is said, came to the water side, and seeing the fleet, blessed it, and stiled it INVINCIBLE.
12. An uncommon piece of arms, being a pistol in a shield, so contrived that the pistol might be fired, and the body covered at the same time. It is to be fired by a match-lock, and the sight of the enemy taken through a little grate in the shield, which is pistol proof.
13. The Spanish rançeur, made in different forms, and intended either to kill the men on horseback, or to pull them off their horses. At the back is a spike, which your attendants say, was to pick the roast beef out of the Englishmen’s teeth. And on one of them is a piece of silver coin, which they intended to make current in England. On this coin are three heads, suppos’d to be the Pope’s, Philip the II’s and Queen Mary’s.——This is a curiosity which most Spaniards who arrive in London come to see.
14. The Spanish officers lances finely engraved. These were formerly gilt, but the gilding is now almost worn off with cleaning. ’Tis said, that when Don Pedro de Valdez, a captain of one of the Spanish ships that was taken, passed his examination before Lord Burleigh, he told his Lordship, that those fine polish’d lances were put on board to bleed the English with; to which that Nobleman, merrily replied, that, if he were not mistaken, the English had performed that operation better on their good friends the Spaniards with worse instruments.
15. The common soldiers pikes eighteen feet in length, pointed with long sharp spikes, and shod with iron; designed to keep off the horse, to facilitate the landing of their foot.
16. The last thing shewn of these memorable spoils, is the Spanish General’s shield, not worn by him; but carried before him as an ensign of honour. Upon it are depicted in most curious workmanship, some of the labours of Hercules, and other allegories which seem to throw a shade upon the boasted skill of modern artists. This was made near an hundred years before the art of printing was known in England: and upon it is the following inscription in Roman characters, ADVLTERIO DEIANIRA CONSPURCANS OCCIDITR CACVS AB HERCVL. OPPRIMITVR 1379.
17. The other curiosities deposited here, are Danish and Saxon clubs, weapons which each of those people are said to have used in their conquest of England. These are, perhaps, curiosities of the greatest antiquity of any in the Tower, they having lain there above 850 years. The warders call them the Womens weapons, because, say they, “the British women made prize of them, when, in one night, they all conspired together, and cut the throats, of 35,000 Danes; the greatest piece of secrecy the English women ever kept, for which they have ever since been honoured with the right-hand of the man, the upper end of the table, and the first cut of every dish of victuals they happen to like best.” The massacre of the Danes, was not however performed by the women alone, but by the private orders of Ethelred II. who in 1012, privately commanded his officers to extirpate those cruel and tirannical invaders.
18. King Henry the VIII’s walking staff, which has three match-lock pistols in it, with coverings to keep the charges dry. “With this staff, the warders tell you, the King sometimes walked round the city, to see that the constables did their duty; and one night, as he was walking near the bridge foot, the constable stopt him to know what he did with such an unlucky weapon, at that time of the night. Upon which the King struck him; but the constable calling the watch-men to his assistance, his Majesty was apprehended, and carried to the Poultry Compter, where he lay till morning, without either fire or candle. When the keeper was informed of the rank of his prisoner, he dispatched a messenger to the constable, who came trembling with fear, expecting nothing less than to be hanged, drawn and quartered: but instead of that, the King applauded him for his resolution in doing his duty, and made him a handsome present. At the same time he settled upon St. Magnus’s parish an annual grant of 23_l._ and a mark, and made a provision for furnishing thirty chaldron of coals and a large allowance of bread annually for ever, towards the comfortable relief of his fellow prisoners and their successors; which, the warders say, is paid them to this day.”
19. A large wooden cannon called _Policy_, because, as we are informed, when King Henry VIII. besieged Bulloign, the roads being impassable for heavy cannon, he caused a number of these wooden ones to be made, and mounted on proper batteries before the town, as if real cannon; which so terrified the French commandant, that he gave up the place without firing a shot.——The truth is, the Duke of Suffolk, who commanded at this siege under the King, soon made himself master of the lower town; but it was not till seven weeks afterwards that the upper town capitulated, in which time the English sustained great loss in possessing themselves of the Bray. The warders must therefore be greatly mistaken in their account of this piece.
20. The ax with which Queen Anne Bullen, the mother of Queen Elizabeth, was beheaded, on the 19th of May 1536. The Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, was also beheaded with the same ax.
21. A small train of ten pieces of pretty little cannon, neatly mounted on proper carriages, being a present from the foundery of London to King Charles I. when a child, to assist him in learning the art of gunnery.
22. Weapons made with the blades of scithes fixed strait to the end of poles. These were taken from the Duke of Monmouth’s party, at the battle of Sedgemoore, in the reign of James II.
23. The partizans that were carried at the funeral of King William III.
24. The perfect model of the admirable machine, the idea of which was brought from Italy by Sir Thomas Lombe, and first erected at Derby, at his own expence, for making orgazine or thrown silk. This model is well worth the observation of the curious.
You now come to the grand storehouse, a noble building to the northward of the White Tower, that extends 245 feet in length, and 60 in breadth. It was begun by King James II. who built it to the first floor; but it was finished by King William III. who erected that magnificent room called the New, or Small Armoury, in which that prince, with Queen Mary, his consort, dined in great form, having all the warrant workmen and labourers to attend them, dressed in white gloves and aprons, the usual badges of the order of masonry.
This structure is of brick and stone, and on the north side is a stately door case adorned with four columns, with their entablature and triangular pediment of the Doric order, and under the pediment are the King’s arms, with enrichments of trophy work.
_The Small Armoury._ To this noble room you are led by a folding door adjoining to the east end of the Tower chapel, which leads to a grand staircase of fifty easy steps. On the left-side of the uppermost landing-place is the workshop, in which are constantly employed about fourteen furbishers, in cleaning, repairing, and new placing the arms.
On entering the armoury you see what they call a wilderness of arms, so artfully disposed, that at one view you behold arms for near 80,000 men, all bright, and fit for service at a moment’s warning: a sight which it is impossible to behold without astonishment, and besides those exposed to view, there were before the present war sixteen chests shut up, each chest holding about 1200 muskets. Of the disposition of the arms no adequate idea can be formed by description; but the following account may enable the spectator to view them to greater advantage, and help him to retain what he sees.
The arms were originally disposed in this manner by Mr. Harris, who contrived to place them in this beautiful order both here and in the guard chamber of Hampton Court. He was a common gunsmith, but after he had performed this work, which is the admiration of people of all nations, he was allowed a pension from the crown for his ingenuity.
The north and south walls are each adorned with eight pilasters, formed of pikes sixteen feet long, with capitals of the Corinthian order composed of pistols.
At the west end, on the left-hand, as you enter, are two curious pyramids of pistols, standing upon crowns, globes, and scepters, finely carved and placed upon pedestals five feet high.
At the east, or farther end, in the opposite corner are two suits of armour, one made for that warlike prince Henry V. and the other for his son Henry VI. over each of which is a semicircle of pistols: between these is represented an organ, the large pipes composed of brass blunderbusses, the small of pistols. On one side of the organ is the representation of a fiery serpent, the head and tail of carved work, and the body of pistols winding round in the form of a snake; and on the other an hydra, whose seven heads are artfully combined by links of pistols.
The inner columns that compose the wilderness, round which you are conducted by your guides, are,
1. Some arms taken at Bath in the year 1715, distinguished from all others in the Tower, by having what is called dog locks; that is, a kind of locks with a catch to prevent their going off at half-cock.
2. Bayonets and pistols put up in the form of half moons and fans, with the imitation of a target in the center made of bayonet blades. These bayonets, of which several other fans are composed, are of the first invention, they having plug handles which go into the muzzle of the gun, instead of over it, and thereby prevent the firing of the piece, without shooting away the bayonet. These were invented at Bayonne in Spain, and from that place take their name.
3. Brass blunderbusses for sea service, with capitols of pistols over them. The waves of the sea are here represented in old fashioned bayonets.
4. Bayonets and sword-bayonets, in the form of half moons and fans, and set in carved scollop-shells. The sword-bayonet is made like the old bayonet, with a plug handle, and differs from it only in being longer.
5. The rising sun irradiated with pistols set in a chequered frame of marine hangers of a peculiar make, having brass handles, and a dog’s head on their pommels.
6. Four beautiful twisted pillars formed of pistols up to the top, which is about twenty-two feet high, and placed at right angles; with the representation of a falling star on the cieling exactly in the middle of them, being the center of this magnificent room. Into this place opens the grand staircase door, for the admission of the royal family, or any of the nobility, whose curiosity leads them to view the armoury; opposite to which opens another door into the balcony that affords a fine prospect of the parade, the Governor’s house, the Surveyor General’s, the Storekeeper’s, and other general officers in the Tower.
7. The form of a large pair of folding gates made of serjeant’s halberts, of an antique make.
8. Horsemen’s carbines, hanging very artificially in furbeloes and flounces.
9. Medusa’s head, vulgarly called the witch of Endor, within three regular ellipses of pistols, with snakes. The features are finely carved, and the whole figure contrived with the utmost art. This figure terminates the north side.
10. Facing the east wall, as you turn round, is a grand figure of a lofty organ, ten ranges high, in which are contained upwards of two thousand pair of pistols.
11. On the south side, as you return, the first figure that attracts attention is Jupiter riding in a fiery chariot drawn by eagles, as if in the clouds, holding a thunderbolt in his left hand, and over his head is a rainbow, this figure is finely carved, and decorated with bayonets.
The figures on this side answer pretty nearly to those on the other, and therefore need no farther description, till you come again to the centre; where, on each side the door leading to the balcony, you see,
12. A fine representation in carved work, of the star and garter, thistle, rose and crown, ornamented with pistols, _&c._ and very elegantly enriched with birds, _&c._
13. The arms taken from Sir William Perkins, Sir John Friend, Charnock, and others concerned in the assassination plot, in 1696; among which they shew the very blunderbuss with which they intended to shoot King William near Turnham Green, in his way to Hampton Court: also the carbine with which Charnock undertook to shoot that Monarch, as he rode a hunting.
14. Lastly, the Highlanders arms, taken in 1715, particularly the Earl of Mar’s fine piece, exquisitely wrought, and inlaid with mother of pearl: also a Highland broad sword, with which a Highlander struck General Evans, and at one blow cut him through the hat, wig, and iron skull cap; on which that General is said to have shot him dead; others say he was taken prisoner, and generously forgiven for his bravery. Here is also the sword of justice, with a sharp point, and the sword of mercy, with a blunt point, carried before the Pretender on his being proclaimed King of Scotland, in 1715. Here are likewise some of the Highlanders pistols, the barrels and stocks being all iron; also a Highlander’s Loughabor ax, with which it is said Col. Gardner was killed at the battle of Preston Pans.
A discerning eye will discover a thousand peculiarities in the disposition of so vast a variety of arms, which no description can reach, and therefore it is fit that every one who has a taste for the admirable combinations of art, should gratify it with the sight of the noblest curiosities of this kind in the whole world.
_The Royal Train of Artillery._ Upon the ground floor under the small armoury, is a large room of equal dimensions with that, supported by twenty pillars, all hung round with implements of war. This room which is twenty-four feet high, has a passage in the middle sixteen feet wide.
At the sight of such a variety of the most dreadful engines of destruction, before whose thunder the most superb edifices, the noblest works of art, and numbers of the human species, fall together in one common undistinguished ruin, one cannot help wishing that these horrible inventions had still lain, like a false conception, in the womb of nature, never to have been ripened into birth. But when, on the other hand, we consider, that with us they are not used to answer the purposes of ambition; but for self defence and in the protection of our just rights, our terror subsides, and we view these engines of devastation with a kind of solemn complacency, as the means providence has put into our hands for our preservation.
1. You are shewn two large pieces of cannon employed by Admiral Vernon before Carthagena; each of which has a large scale driven out of their muzzles by balls from the castle of Bocca Chica.
2. Two pieces of excellent workmanship, presented by the city of London to the young Duke of Gloucester, son to Queen Anne, to assist him in learning the art of war.
3. Four mortars in miniature, for throwing hand granadoes, invented by Col. Brown. They are fired with a lock like a common gun, but have not yet been introduced into practice.
4. Two fine brass cannon taken from the walls of Vigo in 1704, by the late Lord Cobham. Their breeches represent lions couchant, with the effigy of St. Barbara, to whom they were dedicated.
5. A petard for bursting open the gates of a city or castle.
6. A large train of fine brass battering cannon, 24 pounders.
7. Some cannon of a new invention from 6 to 24 pounders. Their superior excellence consists, first, in their lightness, the 24 pounders not weighing quite 1700 weight, whereas formerly they weighed 5000; the rest are in proportion; and secondly, in the contrivance for leveling them, which is by a screw, instead of beds and coins. This new method is more expeditious, and saves two men to a gun, and is said to be the invention of his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland.
8. Brass mortars of thirteen inches diameter, which throw a shell of 300 weight; with a number of smaller mortars, and shells in proportion.
9. A carcase, which they fill at sieges with pitch, tar, and other combustibles to set towns on fire. It is thrown out of an eighteen inch mortar, and will burn two hours where it happens to fall.
10. A Spanish mortar of twelve inches diameter, taken on board a ship in the West Indies.
11. Six French pieces of cannon, six pounders, taken from the rebels at the battle of Culloden, April 16, 1745.
12. A beautiful piece of ordnance, made for King Charles I. when Prince of Wales. It is finely ornamented with emblematical devices, among which is an eagle throwing a thunder bolt in the clouds.
13. A train of field-pieces, called the galloping train, carrying a ball of a pound and half each.
14. A destroying engine, that throws thirty hand granadoes at once, and is fired by a train.
15. A most curious brass cannon made for Prince Henry, the eldest son of King James I. the ornamenting of which is said to have cost 200_l._
16. A piece with seven bores, for throwing so many balls at once, and another with three, made as early as Henry the Eighth’s time.
17. The Drum-major’s chariot of state, with the kettle drums placed. It is drawn by four white horses at the head of the train, when upon a march.
18. Two French field-pieces, taken at the battle of Hochstadt in 1704.
19. An iron cannon of the first invention, being bars of iron hammered together, and hooped from top to bottom with iron hoops, to prevent its bursting. It has no carriage, but was to be moved from place to place by means of six rings fixed to it at proper distances.
20. A very large mortar weighing upwards of 6600 weight, and throwing a shell of 500 weight two miles. This mortar was fired so often at the siege of Namur by King William, that the very touch hole is melted, for want of giving it time to cool.
21. A fine twisted brass cannon twelve feet long made in Edward the Sixth’s time, called Queen Elizabeth’s Pocket pistol; which the warders, by way of joke, tell you she used to wear on her right side when she rode a hunting.
22. Two brass cannon three bores each, carrying six pounders, taken by the Duke of Marlborough at the glorious battle of Ramelies.
23. A mortar that throws nine shells at a time; out of which the balloons were cast at the fire-works, for the last peace.