The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-09-23

The wakefield Tower (adjoinng the Bloody
Tower) is by comparison with the pre-
cediDR, quite an innocent place oil resi- s,
dence. Its large hall, however, mas
tbe reputation of being the spot where
Henry vi was murdered by Richard Vthen Duke
of Gloucester) and certainly III the vault pc
neaih it sixty or seventy of the Scotch prisoners,
in l745, were confined, with so little attention
to fresh air and food that more than halt OF
them pershed. The Tower indeed, seems to
have been q stronghold of abuses, as well as
to have enjoyed pad reputation in respect TO
murders and the Ike, for the COnstables ap.
pointed from time tJ time only considered how
money could be screwed out of those over whom
they were set.
They sold the warderships, allowed public
houses TO be built all over the place, and filed
every corner with pay tenants. No prisoner
was too low or too high but that they put their
screw on even If the thumbscrew was omitted
in the treatment prescribed. When the Princess
Elizabeth was in custody here, the constable,
Sir John Gage, actually took toll OF the pro-
visions supplied TO her, until the Lords of Coun-
Gil forced him to admit her own servants TO SUI
perintend her commissariat. Her imprisonment
was sufficiently harsh, without Sir Johns pill
terines. Mass was constantly Obtruded upon
her. For a whole month sne never passed the
thresholdEof her chamber; and even when she
obtained permission to take the air, she was
always attended by the constable, the lieuten-
ant, and guard. Even little boy of our
years old, who was wont TO pay visits to other
prisoners as well as herself and bring them
flow ers, was suspected of being a messenger
between her and the unhappy Earl of Devon
shire, an inmate OF the Tower from twelve
years of age 'lest he should avenge his fathers
wrongs"-the reason for his committal abso-
lutely assipned-and Who only enioyed two sub
seQuent 1curs of liberty. The child aforesaid
was actually bribed, with promises of FIGS aud
apples, 10 furnish ground Tor accusation against
the Princess and the Earl
In reading Lord de Ros' little volume indeed,
no one can fail to be struck not only with the
injustice and cruelty OF those old times, which
certain foolish persons persist in calling good
hrtt nsaNl N hOgn n
authorities, I" from the king or queen downwards.
Base and brutal as was Queen Mary's conduct
that of Elizabeth was even viler, inasmuch as
she was more causelessly vindictive. We do not
know at what precise period chivalry is
supposed to have been at its best and
palmiest, but certainly modern times offer
no parallel in The way of downright mean
ness to the conduct pursued by such gallant
knight, for instance, as Henry V. We have
all heard of the respect paid by that noble
prince to his prisoners after Agincourt; but it is
not so generally known that he afterwards
behaved to them exactly as our Italian and
Chinese brIgands conduct themselves towards
their captYes. If the ransom-alWays an eX-
travagantly enormous One-was not very soon
| paid, his noble prisoners in the Tower began to
feel 1t in restrictions aud privahons. The Dukes
| of Bourbon and Boucicault died there, since
| their urgent appeals could not extract from the
| tenants OF their exhausted lands the requisite
! sum set upon their release; and Charles of
| Orleans laDguished in those alien walls for a
| quarter OF century.
With whatever hgh.hown courtesy, too,
| women were treated as ''queens of tourney"
| and on great public occasions, in private
| and in prison, their sex was no projections; the
| cowardice and cruelty of their jailors and Of
| those who ruled their iailors, were beyond any
thing, that is heard Of now, except among the
most brutalized of our peasantry, and towards
| some wretched luna,ic half ignorant of her
as TRnk ne DAYS Of Aafv o T KSg Aa
| bullied by Bishop Bonner, worried even
by the Lord Mayor about her religious
| int NNa1 30 ,.,A,
and then sent to the Tower, to be
| Iacked by tthe Chancellor himself, 80
that her limbs were so stretched and her joints
so injured that she was never again able
10 walk without supportn Lastly, she is taken
TO Smithteld to be burned alive in the presence
of the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Bedford,
one of whom, learning that there was some
gunpowder about the fagots (placed by some
good soul to shorten her agoHies), "became
frightened lest any accident should happen to
hinlseif.n Anne Boleyn, by strange refinement
OF cruelty was placed as prisoner III the same
lodging she had occupied previous TO her coro-
nation and when SmetOn had been induced to
spared lin despite Of which promise they hung
him), she was taken out, and beheaded
in the courtyard, and her body thrown
into an arrow chest. For the execution of
read on the walls of the Beauchamp
Tower-there was, perhaps, in those turbulent
times, enough VI excuse; but nothing can pal
late the behaviour Of Elizabeth towards Lady
woman herself, but twenty-five at the time in
question, and who knew from experience the
bitterness of captivity. For the crime (?) OF
marrying lord HertfoTj, this young lady, with
her husband, was committed to the Tower; by
no means, however, in his company; she bore
her first child in solitude, and heard 1t pro-
pounced illegitimate, and her marriage to be
null and void. This monstrous decision was
not, OF course likely 10 affect the sentiments OF
the parties concerned. After time, by persua-
sion or corruption of their keepers, the doors o
their prison were no longer secured against each
other, and the birth OF a second child rektndleo
the anger of Elizabeth double fine was i'm
posed upon Lord Hertiord, and they never met
again, Notwithstanding petitions to her Majesty
setting forth chow uumeet it was that this
young coupe should thus wax old in prison.
This heartless queen seems to have beer
hey ond the reach of nature, and the contempla
tiOn of the domestic love denied to herself
appears to have excited in her Yirulent hate
OF its possessor. She refused TO the Earl o.
Arundel, captive until death in the Beaucham[
Tower, for the crime Of being o Roman Catho
lie, permission to see his newly married wife
or even to be allowed the sight of his infant
son, born since his imprisonment She offered
TO release him altogether upon one condition
and in this she was baser than in her cruelty
that he should change his faith.
The Lady Arabella stuart was another invoun
taTy tenant of the Tower, whose only faults
were her royal birth, and having welded the
man she loved. Her cousin, King James, for
chilly separated.the happy pair, and they formed
, O plan 10 escape 10 France, and there be re-
nnited. In this they committed crime. TIT
! husband succeeded III his design, but Arabellt
failed, and was ted to the Tower, where
after some years she died, as well she might
{ distracted with her mi5eries This daughter o
, a limo nj kiUoE-but too much out OF tl(