Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1885-01-27
THE TOWER OF LONDON.
Description Of the Edihce Whose Traditions
are Known the World Through.


Saturday is free day for admission
to the Tower of London, and because
it was hoped it would be crowded no
doubt the dynamiters chose the Occa-
sion to exercise their dastardly work.
The Tower has history which recedeS
into the dim distance Of fable. There
is little doubt that for many centuries
before the conquest an important struc-
ture stood on this site. Tradition has
il that julius Caesar reared the pile.
William the Conqueror built the
White Tower, or Keep, in 1913.
William Rufus and Henry |. add
ed st. Thomas Tower over the Traitors
Gate. Henry III. largely improved it
and made it into palatial dwelling.
Edward I'll. imprisoned in it Ballot,
Bruce, Wallace, and John, the brave
King of France. Richard III. occupied
the Tower during the Wat Tyler insur-
rection. In the upper chamber of the
White Tower he abdicated his SOW
ereignty in favor Of his cousin, Henry
Bolingbroke. Henry ". imprisoned
here Prince James, son of Robert Ill.
Of Scotland, and beheaded his brother
in-law. the Earl of Huntingdon. Henry
v. brought hither his captives from
Agincourt. and hence sent the leader of
the Lollards, the good Lord Gotham. TO
the stake at st. Giles. Henry vi. died
here under circumstances which sug-
gested that he had been murdered by
Richard Of Gloucester.
The Duke Of Clarence fell the next
victim. then Hastings, and then the
two infant Princes, Edward V. and
Richard of York. The last Of the
Plantagenets, Edward, son of the muir
dered Duke Of Clarence, was beheaded
here for no offence save being the heir
of his father. Perkin Warbeck went
hence TO Tybun, where he was de-
seryedly hanged. In Henry Wills
reign the Tower was specially busy and
occupied, and. if il were possible to ex-
coed in blackncss the records Of the
murders just reeited, the open and le-
galized executions Of this reign must
be held TO have done SO.
The best blood Of England poured
forth layishly on the slightest pretence
during this period upon the scailold of
Tower Hill, or upon the more private
block or the green by st. Peters al
yincula, inside the Tower. After the
victims 10 Henry Wills claims TO be
his own pope came those who suffered
for not properly comprehending the new
orthodoxy--sueh as Anne Askew, who
was raeked in the Tower before she was
burned in Smithfeld, Lord Chancellor
Wiothesley himself having pulled of
his coat 10 give the poor creature an
extra wrench. Bloody Mary initiated
her father but mildly so far as
the Tower is concerned, her CHIEF
victims being Lady Jane Grey and
her adherents. Good Queen Bess
imprisoned many persons here, but exc
cuted only few, and those chiefly to
assert her supremacy in Church and
State. James /. filled the Tower dun
geons with the gunpowdcr-plot con-
spirators, and these were all duly sent
out Of the world after undergoing the
traitors penalty Of being hanged and
dissmbowelled alive. James's reign
was stained by comparatively few other
atrocities in the Tower, the principal
being the poisoning of Sir Thomas
Oyerbury.
In Charles LIS reign began q new
chapter OF Tower history. After Sir
John Eliot Lsd suffered incarceration