Chapter 6

In 1303 the King (then at Linlithgow) sent the Abbot of Westminster and forty-eight of his monks to the Tower on a charge of having stolen £100,000 of the royal treasure placed in the abbey treasury for safe-keeping! After a long trial, the sub-prior and the sacrist were convicted and executed, when their bodies were flayed and the skins nailed to the doors of the re-vestry and treasury of the abbey as a solemn warning to other such evildoers,[52] the abbot and the rest of the monks being acquitted.

No works of any importance can be assigned to the reign of Edward II., the only occurrences of importance being the downfall of the Knights Templars and the imprisonment of many of them at the Tower, where the Grand Prior, William de la More, expired in solitary confinement a few months after the close of the proceedings that marked the suppression of the order; and the escape of Roger Mortimer from the keep (which reads almost like a repetition of Flambard's), the consequences to the constable being his disgrace and imprisonment.[53]

The Tower was the principal arsenal of Edward III., who in 1347 had a manufactory of _gunpowder_ there, when various entries in the Records mention purchases of sulphur and saltpetre "pro gunnis Regis."[54]

A survey of the Tower was ordered in 1336, and the Return to it is printed _in extenso_ by Bayley.[55] Some of the towers are called by names (as for example, "Corande's" and "la Moneye" towers, the latter perhaps an early reference to the Mint) which no longer distinguish them. The Return shows that these--the Iron gate tower, "N," the two posterns of the wharf, and Petty Wales, "_P.P._," the wharf itself, and divers other buildings--were all in need of repair, the total amount for the requisite masonry, timber, tile work, lead, glass, and iron work being £2,154 17s. 8d.!

In 1354 the city ditch is ordered to be cleansed and prevented from flowing into the Tower ditch, and, according to the _Liber Albus_, the penalty of death was promulgated against anyone bathing in the Tower ditch, or even in the Thames adjacent to the Tower!

In 1347 the Tower received, in the person of David, King of Scotland, the first of a long line of royal prisoners, and in 1358 the large sum of £2 12s. 9d. was paid for his medicine. John, King of France, Richard II., Henry VI., Edward V., Queens Jane Dudley, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Princess Elizabeth complete the list.

The Great Wardrobe, "z," adjoining the Wardrobe tower, "s," the Beauchamp tower, "b," the upper story of the Bowyer tower, "e," and perhaps the Constable and Broad Arrow towers, "h" and "i," are probably of this period.

Mr. Clark attributes the Bloody Tower gate, "m," to this reign, but an entrance existed there long before. Most probably it was remodelled, and the vaulting and portcullis were inserted about this time, or early in the reign of Richard II., to whom he also attributes the rebuilding of the Byward tower postern, "H."

There is but little to record in the way of new works after this. Edward IV., in 1472, built an advanced work, called the Bulwark Gate, "A," and nothing further transpires till the reign of Henry VIII., who ordered a survey of the dilapidations to be made in 1532. The repairs of this period, being mostly in brickwork and rough cast, with flint chips inserted in the joints of the masonry, are easily recognised, as are those of Wren by his use of Portland stone.

The buildings of the old palace being much out of repair, the quaint old timber-framed dwelling, "n," adjoining the Bell tower, "a," was built about this time. It is now called the "Lieutenant's Lodgings," but was first known as the "King's House." It contains a curious monument commemorating the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, of which it gives an account, and enumerates the names of the conspirators, and of the Commissioners by whom they were tried.

The quaint storehouses of the Tudor period were replaced in the reign of William III. by an unsightly building, destroyed by fire in 1841, the site of which is now occupied by the Wellington barracks.

The old palace buildings have long since vanished entirely. Towers have been rebuilt or restored, and in 1899 a new guard house has been built between Wakefield tower, "l," and the south-west angle of the keep. The hideously ugly effect of its staring new red brick in contrast with the old and time-worn stone of the ancient fortress must be seen to be realized, its sole redeeming feature being the impossibility of future generations mistaking it for a building of any earlier period. During the clearance of the site for its erection, two discoveries were made--one of a Norman well, "w," which was found to have its top completely hidden by modern brickwork; the other, a remarkable subterranean passage, "9," of which the presence was only detected by its being accidentally broken into. This, when cleared out, was found to terminate in a horrible subterranean prison pit under the south-west angle of the keep (with which, however, it has no means of communication), that doubtless served as the _oubliette_ of the Tower. The pit was empty, but the passage was found to contain bones, fragments of glass and pottery, broken weapons, and many cannon balls of iron, lead, and stone, relics probably of Wyatt's unsuccessful attack in 1554. Leaving the pit, the passage dips rapidly, and, tunnelling under both wards and their walls, emerges a little to the east of Traitors' Gate (see plan), where its arched head may now be seen from the wharf, though formerly several feet below the level of the water in the moat. As it traverses the site of the Hall, there is some reason to suppose that the lower end served as a sewer, for there was a similar one, dating from 1259, at the old Palace of Westminster, so that this may likewise be attributed to Henry III.[56]

It will be seen that the blood-curdling description of the horrors of the rat-pit in Harrison Ainsworth's immortal romance is by no means devoid of some foundation of fact, though when he wrote its existence was unknown. Rats from the river would be attracted to the sewer mouth by the garbage from the palace kitchens, and if any wretched prisoner had been placed in this dreadful dungeon he would speedily have been devoured _alive_![57]

The presence of a single subterranean passage at the Tower ought not to have aroused so much surprise, for such "_souterrains_" were a not infrequent feature of the mediæval fortress. They may be found at Arques, Chateau Gaillard, Dover, Winchester, and Windsor (three), while Nottingham has its historic "Mortimer's Hole." Sometimes they led to carefully masked posterns in the ditches, but they were generally carried along and at the base of the interior faces of the curtain walls, with the object of preventing attempts at undermining, at once betrayed to listeners by the dull reverberations of pickaxes in the rocky ground. There were doubtless others at the Tower, now blocked up and forgotten; indeed, Bayley mentions something of the kind as existing between the Devereux and Flint towers.[58]

There is an allusion to them in the narrative by Father Gerard, S.J., of his arrest, torture in, and escape from the Tower in 1597;[59] but the history of the many illustrious captives who have suffered within these walls would in itself suffice for a large volume, while so much, and from so many pens, has already been written thereon, that I have contented myself with few allusions thereto, and those necessarily of the briefest.

It is much to be regretted that military exigencies have rendered it needful to remove from the walls of the various prison cells many interesting inscriptions with which their inmates strove to beguile the monotony of captivity, and as far as possible to concentrate them in the upper room within the Beauchamp tower, with which many of them have no historic association whatever; but as the public would otherwise have been debarred from any sight of them, this is far from being the unmixed evil it might otherwise appear, while they have been fully illustrated and carefully described by Bayley.

About the time of Edward I. a Mint was first established in the western and northern portions of the outer bailey, where it remained until, in 1811, it was removed to the New Mint in East Smithfield, and the name "Mint Street," given to that portion of the bailey, now commemorates this circumstance.

When, about 1882, the extension of the "Inner Circle" Railway was in progress, the site of the permanent scaffold on Great Tower Hill, upon which so many sanguinary executions took place, was discovered in Trinity Square, remains of its stout oak posts being found imbedded in the ground. A blank space, with a small tablet in the grass of the Square garden, now marks the spot.

In a recent work upon the Tower, an amazing theory has been seriously put forward "of State barges entering the ditch, rowing onto a kind of submerged slipway at the Cradle tower, when, _mirabile dictu_, boat and all were to be lifted out of the water and drawn into the fortress!" Such things are only possible in the vivid imagination of a writer devoid of the most elementary knowledge of the purpose for which this gateway was designed. It suffices to point out that no long State barge could have entered the ditch without first performing the impossible feat of sharply turning two corners at right angles in a space less than its own length, and too confined to allow oars to be used, while there are no recorded instances of such mediæval equivalents of the modern floating and depositing dock! The Cradle tower gate is too short and narrow to admit any such a lift with a large boat upon it, nor does it contain the slightest trace of anything of the kind, or of the machinery necessary for its working. Although prior to the restoration in 1867 there were side openings to Traitors' Gate as well as that from the river, not only were they too low and narrow to admit a boat, but they were fitted with sluice gates for the retention of the water in the moat when the tide was out, which were used until, in 1841, the moat itself was drained and levelled, and the Thames excluded by a permanent dam. The Cradle tower was, as already stated, a postern, leading from the wharf to the Royal Palace, and derived its name from its cradle or drawbridge that here spanned the waters of the moat.

When, in the time of Henry VIII. and his successors, the water gate, "I," ceased to be a general entrance, and was only used as a landing-place for State prisoners on their way to and from trial at Westminster, it first received the less pleasing appellation it still bears of "Traitors' Gate."

The procedure when the Queen or any distinguished person visited the Tower by water was as follows: They alighted from the State barge at the Queen's stairs, "Q," on the river face of the quay, "O," and traversing this on foot or in a litter, entered the Tower by the Cradle tower postern, "K," which afforded the readiest and most direct access to the Palace in the inner ward, while it was entirely devoid of any sinister associations.

In conclusion, it only remains for me to express my thanks to the Major of the Tower, Lieutenant-General Sir George Bryan Milman, K.C.B., for the permission so courteously accorded to visit and examine portions of the fortress closed to the general public, and to the officials of the Tower for facilities kindly afforded me to do so on several occasions.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The _Saxon Chronicle_ (Thorpe), vol. i., pp. 156, 157. (Subsequently cited as "_Sax. Chron._").

[2] _Ibid._, vol. i., pp. 240, 241, 262, 263, 280, 281.

[3] _Archæologia_, vol. lii., p. 615.

[4] See dotted line on plan.

[5] "The Conqueror's Footsteps in Domesday." _English Historical Review_, vol. xiii., p. 17.

[6] _Sax. Chron._, vol. i., p. 339.

[7] Orderic Vitalis, _History of England and Normandy_, book iv., chap. i.

[8] _Norman Conquest_ (Freeman), vol. v., Appendix N., "Castles and Destruction in the Towns."

[9] _Introduction to Domesday Book_ (Ellis), vol. i., pp. 116-122.

[10] _Sax. Chron._, vol. i., p. 351.

[11] The _Custumale Roffense_ (Thorpe), p. 128; the _Registrant Roffense_ (Thorpe), p. 481.

[12] "Conventios inter Gundulfum Episcopum et Eadmerum Anhoende Burgensem Lundoniae. Dum idem Gundulfus ex praecepto Regis Wilhelm magni _præsset operi magnae turris Lundoniae_ et hospitatus fuisset apud ipsum Eadmerum," etc., from the _Registrum Roffense_ (Thorpe), p. 32.

[13] The present entrances on the north face of the keep are entirely modern.

[14] _Sax. Chron._, vol. i., p. 363.

[15] The "turris," or keep, of Colchester is referred to in a charter of Henry I. in 1101, which recites that the King's father and brother had previously held the castle.

[16] _Anglia Sacra_, vol. i., p. 338.

[17] Stow's _Survey of London_, "Of Towers and Castles."

[18] _Norman Conquest_ (Freeman), vol. iii., Appendix, note PP.

[19] William of Malmesbury's _English Chronicle_, book v.; and _Sax. Chron._, vol. i., p. 365.

[20] _Orderic Vitalis_, book x., chapter xvii.; and _William of Malmesbury_, book v., chapter i.

[21] _Norman Conquest_ (Freeman), vol. ii., ch. viii., pp. 189, 190, "The vengeance of Duke William on the men of Alençon."

[22] _Geoffrey de Mandeville_ (J. H. Round), p. 89 and p. 334.

[23] The kitchens of the period were usually situated at no great distance from the Hall, and were in general of very slight construction; frequently they were only wooden-framed buildings, with walls of wattle and daub, and thatched roofs, hence the need for the continual repairs that figure so numerously in the early records.

[24] _Mediæval Military Architecture_ (G. T. Clark), vol. ii., p. 257.

[25] "Norwich Castle" (A. Hartshorne, F.S.A.), _The Archæological Journal_, vol. xlvi., pp. 264, 265.

[26] Stubbs's _Introductions to the Rolls Series_, edited by Hassall, p. 221.

[27] The total cost of erecting Chateau Gaillard des Andelys amounted to £42,361 14s. 4d., according to the _Roll of the Norman Exchequer_ for 1198 (edited by T. Stapleton; vol. ii., pp. 309, 310 _et seq._), a sum which compares very well with the equally great outlay upon the works at London in 1191.

[28] _Archæologia_, vol. lx., p. 239.

[29] Roger of Wendover's _Chronicle_ (Bohn's edition), vol. ii., p. 100, and Roger de Hoveden's _Annals_, _ibid._, vol. ii., p. 137, sub. 1190 ad.

[30] _Manuel d'Archæologie Française_ (Enlart), vol. ii., section xi., pp. 497-500.

[31] "The Norman Origin of Cambridge Castle," W. H. St. John Hope, _Cambridge Antiquarian Society's Communications_, vol. xi., p. 340.

[32] _Exchequer Accounts Roll_, 3/15, 5 Edward I.

[33] _Peel: Its Meaning and Derivation._ George Neilson, F.S.A.Scot.

[34] In the ruins of the Palace of the Archbishops of York at Southwell, in Nottinghamshire, one of the wall turrets used as a latrine chamber, or garderobe, has just such an arrangement for the drain as that above mentioned.--_English Domestic Architecture_ (Turner & Parker), vol. ii., p. 114.

[35] Matthew Paris's _English History_ (Bohn's edition), vol. i., pp. 166, 315, 326.

[36] Also known as "Galighmaes, or Galleyman's," Tower, but the nomenclature of the various towers has been greatly changed at various times.

[37] William of Malmesbury's _English Chronicle_ (Bohn's edition), p. 443, sub. 1119 ad.

[38] _Liberate Rolls_, 37 & 39 Henry III., m. 5 and m. 11.

[39] _Ibid._

[40] Many curious particulars of this menagerie are to be found in Maitland's _History of London_, vol. i., p. 172 _et seq._ In 1754 there were two great apes called "the man tygers" (probably orang-outangs), one of which killed a boy by throwing a cannon ball at him!

[41] _Liberate Roll_, 24 Henry III., at Westminster, February 24th (1240).

[42] _Liberate Roll_, 25 Henry III., m. 20, at Windsor, December 10th.

[43] Matthew Paris, _ut supra_, vol. i., p. 488.

[44] _Close Roll_, 21 Henry III., m. 11; and _ibid._ 37 Henry III., m. 2; also _The Ancren Riwle_ (Camden Society), pp. 142, 143.

[45] _Liber Albus_ (Riley), folio 273 b., E 35, p. 477.

[46] _Close Roll_, 35 Henry III., m. 11.

[47] _Close Roll_, 9 Henry III., p. 2, m. 9. The Close Rolls were so called because they contained matters of a private nature, and were folded or closed up, in contradistinction to the Patent Rolls which (being addressed to all persons impartially) were left open, with the Great Seal affixed to the lower edge.

[48] _Issue Roll_, 19 Edward I., at Westminster, November 30th.

[49] Accounts of Ralph de Sandwich, Constable of the Tower, 17 to 29 Edward I. Army Accounts in the Public Record Office.

[50] _Close Roll_, 10 Edward I., m. 5.

[51] _Exchequer Q.R. Memoranda_, 26 Edward I., m. 109, and _Privy Seals_, Tower, 33 Edward I., file 4.

[52] _Memorials of Westminster Abbey_ (Stanley) (second edition), chap. v., pp. 413, 415.

[53] _Placita. Coram Rege. Roll_, 17 Edward II., p. 2, m. 37.

[54] _Archæologia_, vol. xxxii., "The Early Use of Gunpowder in the English Army," pp. 379-387.

[55] _History of the Tower of London_ (John Bayley, F.S.A.) (first edition), vol. i., Appendix, pp. 1, 4.

[56] _Issues of the Exchequer_ (F. Devon), pp. 43, 74; Expense Roll for works at Westminster Palace, 43 Henry III.

[57] _The Tower of London_ (Harrison Ainsworth), book ii., ch. xi.

[58] _History of the Tower_ (Bayley), vol. i., p. 179.

[59] _History of the Jesuits in England_ (Taunton), ch. vii., p. 166.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT, SMITHFIELD

BY J. TAVENOR-PERRY

Anyone now visiting the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great, after a lapse of fifty years, would scarcely recognize in the present stately building the woe-begone and neglected place of his recollections. In the apse and the transepts, in the lofty screen to the west of the stalls, suggesting a hidden nave beyond, and in the glimpses of the Lady Chapel across the eastern ambulatory, he would see the completed choir of some collegiate church, of which the principal architectural features suggested an ancient foundation. It is true that, in the church of fifty years ago, the Norman details were still very distinct, though the round arches of the arcades had been parodied by the Georgian windows of the east end, and by the plastered romanesque reredos; but gloom and darkness overspread the whole place, encroachments of the most incongruous kinds had invaded the most sacred portions, and to the casual observer it seemed impossible that the church could ever be rescued from the ruin with which it was threatened, or reclaimed from the squalor by which it was surrounded.

To understand the difficulties which lay before the restorers, who, in 1863, commenced the task of saving the building from annihilation, and to properly appreciate what they have achieved, as well as what they only aimed at accomplishing, it is necessary to give some account of the state of the fabric in that year, and, without repeating at undue length the oft-told tale of its foundation, to give a history of the church during the eight hundred years of its existence.

The founder, both of the priory and of the hospital, was one Rahere, of whom but little is certainly known. Some assume that he was that same Rahere who assisted Hereward in his stand against the Norman invaders of the Cambridgeshire fens, but if so, this did not prevent him, later on, from attaching himself to the court of the Conqueror's son. He is generally described as having been jester to Henry I., and it has been assumed that the nature of his engagement involved a course of life calling for repentance and a pilgrimage. But whatever the reason may have been, he apparently went to Rome in 1120, though the journey at that particular juncture was a very unsafe proceeding. He may, perhaps, have joined himself to the train of Pope Calixtus II., who had just been elected at Cluny, in succession to the fugitive Gelasius II., and who made his journey to Rome in the spring of that year. If so, he arrived in Rome at the very worst season, and like many others who visit the city in the summer, he contracted the usual fever. During his illness, or after his recovery, St. Bartholomew appeared to him in a vision, and directed him, on his return to London, to found a church in his honour, outside the walls, at a place called Smithfield. Although visions and their causes are not always explicable, the association of St. Bartholomew with this dream of Rahere's may, perhaps, be accounted for. The church of S. Bartolommeo all'Isola had been built, a century before Rahere's visit, within the ruined walls of the Temple of Æsculapius, on the island of the Tiber, and Saint had succeeded, in some measure, to the traditional healing-power of the God. In classic times, those who flocked to the shrine generally stayed there for one or two nights, when the healer appeared to them in a vision, and gave them directions for their cure. So, in mediæval times, his successor and supplanter followed the same course, but provided cures for the soul rather than for the body.

Rahere can have lost but little time in hastening home and obtaining from the King a grant of the prescribed land, for we find that within three years of his visit to Rome the church of his new convent was sufficiently advanced for consecration, and presumably the convent itself was ready for occupation. The new priory was designed for the reception of Canons Regular of the Order of St. Augustine, and the reason for the founder's adoption of this Order, apart from the fact that it was somewhat fashionable at this period, may have been partly because his former occupation had particularly fitted him for public speaking, and partly because two, at least, of the men with whom he had been closely associated at Henry's court were themselves members of this order. And it is necessary to bear these facts in mind in considering the never-to-be-determined question of whether the apse of St. Bartholomew's was ever completed by Rahere.

These two friends of the founder's were Richard de Belmeis, Bishop of London, and William de Corbeil, or Corboyle, Archbishop of Canterbury, and they were not only themselves Austin Canons, but were actively engaged in spreading the influence of that order. The Bishop had then recently built the Priory of St. Osyth, in Essex, of which the Archbishop, who had previously been connected with the Priory of Merton, had been the first prior. Moreover, Corbeil, soon after he had received the pallium, obtained permission to suppress the monastery of St. Martin-le-Grand--for monasteries were suppressed in the reign of the first Henry, as well as in the reign of the last--and devote its revenues to building a new priory for Austin Canons, outside the walls of Dover. This priory, known as St. Martin New-work, of which considerable portions remain to this day, presents what may be regarded as a model plan of a church of this order, and consisted of a small square-ended choir, shallow transepts, and a large nave with aisles. From this it is evident that Rahere's building differed most essentially from the recognized type, and the question is, did his friends point out to him his deviation from the almost invariable rule of the Austin Canons to give their churches a square east end in time to enable him to modify his design, or were they able to induce him, after he had completed his apse, to remove the two easternmost piers, and to insert in place of them a square-ended chapel? But to this question no answer has ever been discovered.