# Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands 1842/Lady Jane Grey's Prison Window

LADY JANE GREY'S PRISON WINDOW.
Up, up this dizzy stair, for here she went
 To her dark prison-room, the sweetly fair,
Around whose cradle wealth and power had bent,
 And classic learning strewed its garlands rare:
The guiltless martyr for a father's fault,
 That strong ambition which o'erleaped the truth,
And placed her shrinking on another's throne,
 To whelm in hapless woe her blooming youth.
Here, on this grated window let me lean,
 From whence she gazed upon that fearful sight,
The life-blood of her bosom's dearest lord;
 Her pale lip shuddering, yet her pure eye bright
With faith the same sharp path to tread, and meet
 The idol of her love at their Redeemer's feet.
Tuesday, Oct. 20, 1840.
The objects of interest comprised within the precincts of the Tower are almost without number. ​Some, however, which were the most zealously shown, were to me, from a deficiency of military taste, the least pleasing; for instance, the two hundred thousand stand of arms, arranged in an imposing manner, and quantities of cannon, captured from many countries. The corroded guns of the Royal George, drawn by the diving-bell from their long sojourn in the deep, agreeably restored the plaintive verses of Cowper, so often sung among the ditties of childhood:
"Toll for the brave,
 The brave that are no more,
All sunk beneath the wave,
 Fast by their native shore."
The destructive weapons and instruments of torture, taken from the Spanish armada, are exhibited in connexion, with a waxen effigy of Queen Elizabeth on horseback, going to return thanks at St. Paul's for the defeat of that terrible armament, by the artillery of Heaven, which she caused to be kept in memory by a medal with the inscription, "Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them." I placed my thumb in the screws, which the Dons provided for their English neighbors, touched the edge of the axe that beheaded Anne Boleyn, felt the rugged block, which had been so oft saturated with noble blood, ascended the narrow, winding stair, to the turret, whose walls the martyrs had indented with their names and ​etchings, and climbing still higher, looked from the grated window, whence gazed the lovely Lady Jane Grey, on the headless body of Lord Guilford Dudley, and entered the low, miserable dungeon, where Sir Walter Raleigh was nightly locked, while his chainless mind solaced itself with the composition of history.
Afterwards in a darkened room we were shown, through a rampart of iron bars, England's regalia, sceptre, ampulla, and christening font, the crown of poor Anne Boleyn, that of James the First, and the new one made for Victoria, sparkling with precious stones, and valued at two millions sterling.
The warders of the tower, with their flat hats or caps, encircled with wreaths, and laced frock-coats, lead the mind back to the time of Henry the Eighth, who established that gorgeous costume. I formed quite a friendship for the line of equestrian kings, knights, and cavaliers, from Henry the Sixth to James the First, who were ranged in full armor; and regretted their loss, when the subsequent conflagration at the tower destroyed so many relics, that time and tradition had made precious to mankind.