CHAPTER X.THE TOWER.

A MOTLEY MASS.

As I gazed in wonder upon some of the articles I saw, andnoticed how little of the original article could be sold, I bethought myself of the cooper who was brought a bung hole, with the request that he build a barrel about it.

The street vendors of eatables formed no small portion of the traffic that was going on incessantly. You can get a slice of roast beef with greens (greens is what these people call cabbage, and, by the way, they call a lemonade a “lemon squash”), for a penny, and you shall see it cut from the joint, otherwise you wouldn’t know what it was. True the plate on which the satisfying food was placed had been merely dipped in cold water, and true it was that the two hundred pound woman who served it had never washed her hands since the day she was married, but that did not matter. The dish was taken and devoured, the ceremony of paying before getting it being religiously observed. There were shrimps, and snails, and lettuce salads, and moldy fruit, and everything else that the British public eats, all on the street, which is convenient, to say the least.

Sharpers were not wanting to complete this variegated scene. The thimble-rigger was there, his game being confined to a penny, so as to harmonize with the general cheapness of the locality, and, to keep it in perfect accord, his little portable table, and his thimbles were second-hand. There were street acrobats, nigger minstrels, hand organs, hurdy-gurdys, street singers, and the inevitable street brass band, made up of four sad-looking men who appeared as though there was nothing in life for them, and that they were playing in expiation of some great crime, and were compelled to play on forever. How these people live I never could make out. During the whole day I never saw a penny given them, except one which one of our party threw them. They took it up with an expression of the most intense surprise, as though it was an astounding and unlooked-for occurrence, and immediately stopped playing, and made for the nearest cook stand and invested the whole of it in a plate of beef and greens, which was divided among the four. I was about to throw them another penny, but was checked by our guide. He protested against pampering them. I understood him. The American Indian will consume a month’s provisions in a single day’s feast, and starve the othertwenty-nine. Had I given them another penny they would have had another plate of beef on the spot, and then gone hungry a week. As we intended to come again next Sunday, for their own good I reserved the penny for that occasion.

Understand it is not Jews who are the purchasers of these wrecks of goods, these reminiscences of furniture and the like; they are the sellers. The purchasers are the British public proper, who come here for bargains. They get them—perhaps.

The question is, where do all these things come from? If there are more than one in the Jewish family, and whether there is or not depends upon the age, for they marry very young, and have children as rapidly as possible, all but one of them roam through the country incessantly, buying, bartering for and picking up all the stuff, which, after bought or picked up, is brought here and fixed as far as the skill and ingenuity of the purchaser and the rottenness of the material will permit. Then it is sold, at no matter what price. The motto in Petticoat Lane is, “no reasonable offer refused.”

It is not, however, only the second-hand that Petticoat Lane deals in. You see moving among the crowd here and there quite another class of Israelites from those who are vending dilapidated clothing and broken furniture. They are well dressed men, with coats buttoned up very closely. Their raven locks are surmounted with tall hats, and their boots cleaned as carefully as any swell’s in London. They are all distinctively Hebrew, there being no exception to this rule.

DIAMONDS.

Across the way is a beer-shop, kept by a Hebrew, the bar-maids and all being Hebrew. On the one side of the bar is a small dining room; back of that a kitchen, and from the bar-room is a flight of stairs. Follow your guide, who in this instance was an American Hebrew, and you find yourself in a low room just the size of the bar below, and a curious scene presents itself. These rooms, and there are scores of them in Petticoat Lane, contain on an average any number of millions of pounds that you choose to say. I could say that there were a hundred millions of wealth in each one, and perhaps wouldn’t be very much out of the way, but as I desire to be accurate, I will not. If there is anything I detest, it is exaggeration.I hope to distinguish myself by being the first tourist who adhered strictly to the naked truth.

These rooms are diamond marts. In them all the diamonds that deck out royalty and the wives of patent medicine men, gamblers, negro minstrels, and other people who are not royal, are first handled. To these dingy dens in the very heart of the worst quarter of the worst city in the world, comes the diamond merchant, and here he meets the broker who deals with the manufacturer in the city. Here all the diamonds of London are first bought and sold.

One looks at it with amazement. Enter a young Jew with the preternaturally sharp features that distinguish the race. All the merchants, and there may be a dozen, each sitting at his little table, hail him, and all in the language that the new comer speaks the best. The Hebrew speaks all languages, and all of them well. (Facts crowd upon me so fast that it is difficult to keep to my subject.) The young fellow unbuttons his coat, and then the top buttons of his vest, and takes from an inner pocket a long leather pocket-book, which he opens carefully. There are disclosed a dozen papers folded like an apothecary’s package, and he opens them. Your eyes dance as you see the contents. Diamonds! I never dreamed there were so many in the world. Each paper contains a handful of all sizes and qualities, cut and uncut, of all colors and shades known to the diamond, and the ancient Jews at the tables take these papers and examine critically the different sparklers, going over the lot as the Western farmer would his cattle. With a little steel instrument he separates this one from his fellows and puts it under a glass, and screws his eye into the stone, and then little tiny scales, which would turn under the weight of a sunbeam, are brought into requisition, and then would come more chaffering and bargaining than would suffice to buy and sell an empire.

This young fellow does not own these precious stones. He is a broker. The diamond is first brought to light in Brazil, India, or the Cape of Good Hope. From the original producer it passes into the hands of the resident buyer, who consigns it to the broker to sell, and he does it on commission the same asthe elevator men handle wheat. The buyer in Petticoat Lane either cuts and sets it himself, or re-sells it to the fashionable jeweler, as he can make the most profit. Trust them for doing that. It is something the London Hebrew understands long before he cuts his teeth.

But it is not alone diamonds you find in these rooms. On the various tables may be seen jewelry of every possible description, and all sorts of goods, from a tooth-pick up. You can buy a watch or a jack-knife, a button-hook or a diamond bracelet. Especially is the variety of curious old jewelry very extensive. You find there rings and brooches set with all sorts of stones, of every period in the world’s history, which makes it the resort of the wealthy collectors of the ancient and curious. Here is a brooch, said to have been worn by Queen Anne, and another by one of the mistresses of Louis XVIII., of France. The seller says it was, and if he happens to be mistaken, what difference does it make so that you believe it? It is just as good to you as though the history was accurate. One should not be particular in such matters, though I saw enough brooches that were once the property of an English Queen to have set up a very large jewelry store, and were they all genuine it explains the high taxes in England, and justifies all the rebellions the country has suffered. But it is all well enough. The goods are actually quaint and beautiful. It is darkly hinted that these Jews have factories where jewelry once worn by royalty is manufactured by the bushel, and I should not wonder thereat. For, you see, a brooch of modern style, worth say fifty pounds, is worth one hundred pounds if it were once Queen Anne’s. “Dose goots, ma tear sir, vat ish anshent, and hef historical associations, are wort any money. At one hundred pounts it ish a bargain.”

As the price doubles because of historical features it pays very nicely to manufacture the old styles, and tarnish the gold, and make antiques. But possibly this is a weak invention of the Gentiles who do not deal in antiques.

THE CONFIDING ISRAELITE.

One would suppose that it would be rather hazardous to carry about so much wealth in a paper. What is to preventthe Jew at the table who has a paper before him containing, say, two hundred diamonds, from secreting one or two? The broker hands a paper to one, and another to another, and divides his time between them, and to take a stone would be as easy as lying.

Possibly it would be hazardous among Gentiles, but not so among these Jews. There is an unwritten code among them which makes the property as safe in their hands as though one diamond were shown at a time. There is absolute honor among them, which was never yet known to be tarnished. It is absolute and perfect.

“DAKE DOT RING.”

“DAKE DOT RING.”

“DAKE DOT RING.”

One venerable Jew was very anxious to sell me a ring, the price of which he fixed at one hundred and twenty dollars, “and no abatement.” (When a Jew diamond merchant says “no abatement,” that settles it. There is none.)

“Dake dot ring, put him in your bocket, go to any scheweler in Rechent street, and oof you can get him vor dwice de monish I will give him to you.”

“What!” was my reply, “do you say that I, a perfectstranger to you, may carry off a ring worth forty pounds? Suppose I shouldn’t come back with it?”

“Ach, ma tear sir, Philip (my American friend) vouldn’t pring nobody here vot vould do such a ting. Dake der ring, ma tear sir, and see about him. It ish a bargain.”

Philip or any one of the guild would be allowed to carry away a king’s ransom.

Would, oh would, that the other people of the world were equally honest and upright. Still, I wouldn’t advise any one to depend upon their word in a purchase. They have two kinds of morality. A trade with them is a battle royal, in which each tries to get the better of the other, but the word once passed is never broken.

The merchant sits all day at his table, his meals, always a cut of beef and greens, with a pewter of bitter beer, being brought to him from the kitchen below. He sits and eats, never permitting, however, his eating and drinking to interfere with his business. He would put down his pot of beer to continue a trade any time, something I know a great many Americans would not do.

Petticoat Lane is one of the curiosities of London, and the day was well spent. It is a world by itself—a foreign nation preserving its religion and customs intact, injected into the very heart of London.

A LANE IN CAMBERWELL.

A LANE IN CAMBERWELL.

A LANE IN CAMBERWELL.

TOvisit the Tower is to draw aside the curtain that separates the past from the present. It is to go back a thousand years, and commune with those who have long ages been dust, and of whom only a memory remains. Once in the Tower, one seems to be with them, to see them, and to feel their influence as though they were living, moving beings, and not historical ghosts.

The vast structure, now in the heart of the great city, though once on its borders, is as much out of place in this day and age of the world, as a soldier would be in any of the suits of armor within its walls. It is war in the midst of peace, it is a fortress surrounded by traffic, it is lawless force against law, it is simply an incongruity, and only valuable and interesting as showing what was, in comparison with what is.

It was built originally as a stronghold, to keep the fiery and oft-times rebellious citizens of London in check, and was afterward occupied alternately, or at the same time, as a prison or palace. Many a terrible drama has been enacted within the ancient walls, many a broken heart has wasted away within the solid stone in its gloomy dungeons, and many a noble head has parted company with its body, under its cold shadow, and there is any quantity of “human interest,” as the dramatists say, connected with it. There is a strong flavor of murder all through it, there is cruelty written upon every stone, and treachery and death on every inch of the cold, paved floors.

If a king desired to put quietly out of the way a dangerous rival, or if he lusted after a woman, or wanted anything that was especially unlawful and damnable, he could not have beenbetter fixed for the business than with this fortress, provided he had a sufficient number of servitors to do his bidding faithfully. And that sort of material was very plenty, in those days, for kings who had the means of rewarding them. The devil himself could not have fitted up a better arrangement if he had given his whole mind to the matter, and his ability in this direction is unquestioned.

There are dungeons where an unfortunate’s cries could never be heard; there are cells so strong that escape was simply impossible, even without the watchful care of the soldiery with which it was filled, and in short over each of its gates might well be written, “Who enters here leaves hope behind.” It is a wonderful but an intensely disagreeable place.

These old places are not the most cheerful in the world, but still I like them. A ride behind a tandem team through the green lanes of Hampstead, with the beautiful hedges on either hand, and the quaint old houses with their steep red-tiled roofs, and their low rooms and curious little windows that look more like eyes than windows, the broad fields, grass green, (grass is greener in England than America,) with the beautiful sleek cattle feeding peacefully, is a more pleasant thing, for it is a singular as well as delightful mixture of to-day and yesterday. The fields and cattle are of to-day, the houses are of a long ago yesterday, but there is added what the Tower has not, the sun, which is of yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, shining down, and lighting up the quiet glories that surround you. This is not depressing. The houses fit the atmosphere—in good sooth I cannot imagine such houses in any other atmosphere, and certainly the atmosphere would not be complete without the houses. Everything adapts itself to everything else. A pale face would be as much out of place in an American rum shop as a strawberry patch in an alkaline desert. Rum requires something lurid—the quiet, soft, hazy English atmosphere exactly fits the soft brown and the subdued red that almost narrowly escapes being a brown of the houses.

THE CHEERFULNESS OF THE TOWER.

But in the Tower you have nothing that is soft, nothing that is pleasant, nothing one would like to have about him.

The Tower is a good thing for a world to see, so that it can know what to avoid.

Two teachers of elocution were in great rivalry. One gave an exhibition with his pupils.

“Where are your classes to-day?” asked a friend of the other one.

“Gone to Mr. Blank’s exhibition.”

“Do you permit your pupils to attend your rival’s exhibition?”

“Certainly. I want them to learn what to avoid.”

No light ever penetrates its gloomy walls. There are but two colors—the blackened wood painted by time, and the cold gray of the stones. All the color indicates cruelty—the very stones typify the character of the men who put them together, and their successors who used them. It is the cruelest appearing place on the face of the earth, now that the French Bastile is gone, and I doubt if a Frenchman could possibly construct a place so grimly severe, so unutterably merciless as the Tower. He would have had some fancy about it—it would have been lighted up somehow.

The Tower is so severe that a picture of a beheading, or of a torture, would be cheerful by contrast and improve it.

I would suggest now, that to enliven the old place a bit, and save a man from giving way too much to the depression that governs the spot, that a fresco be painted representing the burning of John Rogers at the stake, or the disemboweling of the Waldenses, or some cheerful historical picture of that kind. Should the artist select pictures from Fox’s Book of Martyrs, that one where the soldiers are crowding people off a precipice so that they fall upon iron spikes about four feet long, would impart a cheerful tone to the surroundings in the Tower and make one feel more kindly toward his race.

As it is, he who enters and stays awhile becomes a convert to the doctrine of Total Depravity. He gets blood-thirsty himself, and feels like snatching up some one of the million weapons that are stored there and killing somebody. The articles preserved with so much care are all suggestive of blood. It is a Moloch of a place; but one must see it, all the same.

The most cheerful place in the great structure is the jewel room, or tower, as it is called. It isn’t very much of a room, but there is a great deal in it which is of interest. Here are kept the regalia appertaining to the throne. In glass cases very carefully guarded are all the crowns of the royal family, and the scepters and things which they display on state occasions, and a rare lot they are.

THE JEWEL TOWER.

THE JEWEL TOWER.

THE JEWEL TOWER.

THE ROYAL JEWELS.

The prevailing impression among those not used to royalty is that the King and Queen and the rest of their “royal nibses,” as an American would irreverently say, go about dressed in velvet robes, covered with jewels, with crowns upon their heads; that when the Queen goes to bed at night she removes the crown, or a dozen maids of honor do it for her, and that she resumes it the first thing in the morning, before she comes down to breakfast. A moment’s reflection will show any one the impossibility of anything of the kind. A crown would be no protection for the head, and velvet robes would be exceedingly warm in summer, and not warm enough in winter; and besides were the Queen to wear a crown withsome millions of dollars’ worth of precious stones in it, some enterprising footpad would have it in no time, and then what would she do?

For these reasons, which ought to be satisfactory to any reflective mind, the crowns and articles of like nature are kept in the tower, and are only worn on state occasions, when the public want a free show.

At all other times the Queen dresses like any other lady, with a regular dress, and bustles, and all that sort of thing, and a bonnet, and she dresses frightfully plain, so all the milliners and modistes say, too plain for their trade; for Victoria, to a certain extent, sets the fashion, which the court follows.

But in these cases you shall see the Queen’s crown, a cap of purple velvet enclosed in hoops of silver, surmounted by a ball and cross, and glittering with actual diamonds. In the center is an immense sapphire, and in front is a famous heart-shaped ruby, said to have been worn by the Black Prince. I don’t know the value of this article, or where he stole it, but if Victoria gets hard-up and wants to raise money, I presume the Jews in Petticoat Lane would advance a million or two on it, and take their chances. Queens have done this before now, and all the crown jewels in Europe have been in the hands of the Israelites at different times; but I rather think Victoria will worry through. She has an income of many thousands of pounds a year, and is very economical. If I remember aright, she sent the starving Irish a thousand pounds, which was about her income for an hour. And then an admiring Parliament, to make it good to her, voted her thirty thousand pounds sterling, which the people accepted without a murmur. She finds profit in liberality.

Then there is St. Edward’s Crown, the Prince of Wales’s, the ancient Queen’s Crown, the Queen’s Diadem, that of Charles the Second, and a dozen or two others, with scepters and rods, and all sorts of things which are carried before, or behind, or on one side or the other, of Kings and Queens, on occasions of great solemnity, when the people are to be impressed with a sense of the importance of these individuals to the world at large. The famous Koihnoor, stolen from an East India Prince, some years since, is there—in glass, which is a swindle.We wanted, and expected, when we paid our sixpence, to see the genuine article, not a base imitation. It is as it is at side-shows at a circus, you are allured inside by a picture of a vast giraffe, nipping boughs from trees, and when you have paid and are in, you are shown a stuffed giraffe, who can no more eat boughs from tall trees than he could preach a funeral sermon. Possibly we should have demanded our money back, but we didn’t.

SIR MAGNUS’ MEN.

SIR MAGNUS’ MEN.

SIR MAGNUS’ MEN.

THE HORSE ARMORY.

From the jewel room you pass on to an infinity of towers, all through long halls, how long I can’t say, filled with all sorts of armor and weapons. Horses are set up and figuresplaced upon them, dressed in the identical armor worn by the old kings and nobles, who, in their day, rode about the country clad in iron fish scales, with a half ton of iron, more or less, on their heads, engaged in the (to them) delightful occupation of burning each other’s castles and killing the occupants. They did not require a “cause,” or anything of the sort. If Sir Hugh Bloody-bones wanted the wife or daughter of Sir Magnus Blunderbore, he simply donned his iron, picked up his lance, called together the inferior cut-throats who followed and lived upon him, and went for it. Sir Magnus, if not surprised and murdered in cold blood, and he was generally not, for those old ruffians slept upon their arms, harried the country for supplies, shut the clumsy gates of his castle, and stood the siege. If the castle was carried, all within were put to death, except such of Sir Magnus’ cut-throats who were willing to join Sir Hugh, the women were carried off, and so on. The survivors were willing, always, to join the victor. The successful Knight would say, “Now look here, you fellows, Sir Magnus is dead. I slew him, and you can’t get provisions from him any more, while with me there will always be plenty of prog. I shall keep you busy, for there are other castles to storm, and I am not very particular with my men.”

And they would all “take service,” as they called it, with the successful robber, and go right on as usual. They would take anything.

It was a cheerful life these ancient murderers lived, though the people who supported them didn’t find it so pleasant.

The Horse Armory, so called because the figures in it are mostly equestrian, is one hundred and fifty feet in length by thirty-four in width. There sits a Knight of the time of Henry VI., in complete armor, lance and all, just as he appeared when he started out to kill somebody and steal his effects. The armor, understand, is not afac-simile, it is the genuine thing, actually worn by the marauder of that time. Then come Knights of the time of Edward III. and Edward IV., both on their horses and armored from top to bottom. How any man could carry such a load of iron and sit upon a horse, and how any horse could carry such a mass of iron, with his own, for the horses were armored also, passes my comprehension.Imagine a man in July, with the thermometer at ninety-five in the shade, with a steel pot on his head, covering his face entirely, with little holes to admit air, with a breast-plate of boiler-iron, and a similar one on his back, with his arms and hands guarded with iron, and his legs and feet likewise, with swords and battle-axes, and daggers hung to him, and a lance fourteen feet in length, to handle, doing battle. Yet they wore all this, and in Palestine, and in every other hot country in the world.

HORSE ARMORY.

HORSE ARMORY.

HORSE ARMORY.

Woe to the Knight who was unhorsed with all this pot-metal on him. He couldn’t rise under the load, and the other one could prod him to death at his leisure, and enjoy himself at it as long as he pleased.

BLUFF KING HARRY.

Next to this is the figure of that wonderful old Mormon, Henry VIII. The armor on this figure is the most curious and valuable in the collection. It was presented to him on the occasion of his marriage to Catherine, his No.—,—I forget what her number was—and he wore it at many a tournament. This King, it will be remembered, had a way of getting rid of wives that was far superior to Indiana divorce courts. Whenever he saw a woman that he thought he wanted, and he had an eye for women, he merely accused his wife of being unfaithful to him, and had a court which always brought her in guilty, and her head was chopped off without ceremony, and he married his new flame, only to accuse her and bring her before the court and chop her head off in her turn. He finished eight in this way. It was the Pope’s opposition to one of these little arrangements that brought about the divorce of England from the Church of Rome, and was the beginning of the Protestant movement. But for Henry’s terrible liking for women and his peremptory and decisive way of divorcing wives, I probably to-day should have been a Catholic! What great events spring from trifling causes.

ST. JOHN’S CHAPEL.

ST. JOHN’S CHAPEL.

ST. JOHN’S CHAPEL.

All the way down the long hall are equestrian figures, allarmed in the identical armor worn by the men whose names they bear, and between the figures are the arms of the various periods of English history since men took to killing each other as a trade. In this and adjoining halls are grouped very artistically the arms of every country of the globe, and of all ages and times. There are guns of every possible kind, most of them of very rare workmanship, for the mechanics of those old days put more work upon arms than upon anything else, and swords and daggers, and battle-axes, and various devices for knocking out brains.

ST. THOMAS’S TOWER.

ST. THOMAS’S TOWER.

ST. THOMAS’S TOWER.

THE BLOODY STRUCTURE.

By the way, the revolver is popularly supposed to be an American invention, but it is not. There are a score of revolvers here that were made almost as soon as gunpowder was invented and came into use. The very one from which Colonel Colt got the idea of a repeating arm is here, and it is identical in construction with that which now graces the thighs of so many Americans, and which has done so much for the glory of our happy country. They were not very much used, however, as, owing to the imperfect means of firing the loads, all the barrels were liable to go off at once, invariably killing the shooter without materially damaging the shootee. The invention of the percussion cap made the revolver practicable, andColonel Colt’s widow is living in great luxury upon an idea taken by her husband from the Tower of London, the work of some humble mechanic hundreds of years ago. I doubt not that if she could find the heirs of that mechanic she would pension them. But they were doubtless all killed in the wars of the day, and so it probably would not be worth her while to try to seek them out.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE TOWER.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE TOWER.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE TOWER.

To enumerate everything that is curious in the way of arms and armor in this hall would be to make a catalogue. It takes more than a day to merely see (not study) this collection, and then one has his mind overloaded.

The different buildings that make up what is known collectively as the Tower, have all histories, and all bloody ones. There is nothing but blood connected with it. In the White Tower, Sir Walter Raleigh was confined, and near his den is that once occupied by Rudstone, Culpepper, and Sir Thomas Wyat, who were all beheaded on Tower Hill. The Council Room was used by the Kings when they wanted to give some sort of show of law for a murder, and in this the Council sat when Richard III. ordered Lord Hastings to instant execution.

The Bloody Tower (that would be the proper name for all of them) was where Richard III. was supposed to have murdered the two children of Edward IV., his brother, on which event Shakespeare founded his play of that name. Some Englishhistorians have endeavored to show that Richard was no such a man as Shakespeare represents. Instead of being a hump backed, distorted villain, such as we see upon the stage, they insist that he was the handsomest man of his time; that he did not even try to murder the Princes, and, moreover, that he was one of the most humane, politic Kings England ever had, and during his short reign of nine months, instituted material reforms, and did more to promote the welfare of England than any King who had preceded or followed him. Also, they deny the story of his drowning his brother Clarence in a butt of Malmsey wine, and likewise his murder of King Henry.

THE BLOODY TOWER.

THE BLOODY TOWER.

THE BLOODY TOWER.

THE MUCH-ABUSED KING RICHARD.

Probably these historians are right. Since it has been shown that General Jackson did not fight his men behind a breastwork of cotton bales, a delusion that grew up with me, and since it has been demonstrated that there is no maelstrom on the coast of Norway, that takes down ships and whales into its terrible vortex, as shown in the ancient geographies of thirty years ago, I have lost faith in everything. When I want romance I read history, and when I hunger for history I read novels. But whether he was a good man or a bad,

THE PRESUMED DROWNING OF CLARENCE IN A BUTT OF WINE.

THE PRESUMED DROWNING OF CLARENCE IN A BUTT OF WINE.

THE PRESUMED DROWNING OF CLARENCE IN A BUTT OF WINE.

Shakespeare has fixed his flint for all time. The essayist may essay, and facts may be piled up mountain high in his favor, but Richard will always appear to us as Shakespeare painted him, a hump-backed, withered-legged man with a villainous face, killing Princes, stabbing Kings and drowning brothers in wine. Still, I don’t suppose Richard cares now what is said of him. If he killed the Princes, they, dying young and before they could be Kings, and consequently comparatively pure, hewill never meet them. If he did not, and is with them, they have had ample time to arrange their little differences. The opinion of the world makes little difference to Richard, whereever he is. Nevertheless, as I wish to stand well with the world hereafter, I shall try not to get the ill-will of the poets whose works are likely to live. Richard’s reputation should be a warning.

THE BYWARD TOWER.(From the East.)

THE BYWARD TOWER.(From the East.)

THE BYWARD TOWER.

(From the East.)

A CHAPTER OF MURDERS.

The bloody record continues. Devereux Tower is where the brilliant Essex was confined till he was “privately beheaded.” The Byward Tower is where Duke Clarence is said to have been drowned in the wine, which was a great waste of wine, though it was a delicate compliment to the Duke, who was fond of it. It was probably distributed among the soldiers who did the job. In the Brick Tower Lady Jane Grey was immured, and in the Martin Tower Anne Boleyn, one of Henry VIII.’s wives, was confined, till she was beheaded, as well as “several unhappy gentlemen” who were foolish enough to stand up for her, who also had their heads chopped off. The word “unhappy” is not misused in their case. In the Salt Tower is shown an inscription made by a gentleman who was accused of using enchantments “to the hurt of Sir W. St. Lowe and my ladye,” who also found himself short a head one fine morning. It was acomfortable time to live when “Sir W. St. Lowe,” a court favorite, could accuse a man he owed money to of being a wizard, and then ordering him beheaded. It was easier to pay debts in those days than going through bankruptcy is now.

THE BEAUCHAMP TOWER.

THE BEAUCHAMP TOWER.

THE BEAUCHAMP TOWER.

There were so many murders committed in the Beauchamp Tower that in the guide books it is counted worthy of a chapter by itself, not only because of the number, but because of the peculiarly atrocious quality of them. The other murderers were mere apprentices at the business compared with those who had the Beauchamp tower in charge. They were artists, and knew all about it. They gave their whole mind to it. Marmaduke Neville with fifty others who believed in Mary, Queen of Scots, were confined in this tower, and they were all beheaded in one day. Likewise Mr. William Tyrrell, who had some differences with the government; then the Earl Arundel was beheaded from this interesting old slaughter house for aspiring to the hand of Mary Queen of Scots. It appears that a man couldn’t safely make love in those days. But as he was tried for his religion—not for love—he was not beheaded, but was mercifully permitted to “languish in prison” till he died. It is probable that his jailors did not feed him on porter-house steaks.

The Earl of Warwick and the three brothers Dudley werehere. The Duke, the eldest of the three, was beheaded, and the others mercifully starved to death. A gentleman named Gyfford was put to the rack in the Tower, and finally consenting to answer the questions put to him—your rack was a rare persuader—was probably dismissed. But doubtless the headsman got him. Dr. Stohr, who refused to deny his religion—he was a Catholic—was imprisoned here, and was released only to suffer a cruel death at Tyburn. Being a Catholic, and murdered by Protestants, we may draw from his history the useful lesson that persecution was not, strictly speaking, confined to the Catholic church, as is popularly supposed. The Protestants, when in power, knew the uses of the rack, and thumbscrew, and stake, just as well as the Catholics, and they were just as handy with them.

THE OVERWORKED HEADSMAN—FIFTY IN ONE DAY.

THE OVERWORKED HEADSMAN—FIFTY IN ONE DAY.

THE OVERWORKED HEADSMAN—FIFTY IN ONE DAY.

INTERESTING RELICS.

The Brothers Poole wanted Mary to be the Queen, and they went the long road from here.

But the list is too long for these pages.

THE PERSUASIVE RACK.

THE PERSUASIVE RACK.

THE PERSUASIVE RACK.

That you may be perfectly sure of the accuracy of these things, the identical headsman’s block is carefully preserved, with the ax he used and the mask he wore when engaged in his delightful duty. The ax is shaped very like a butcher’s cleaver, and the mask is about the most fiendish face that a devilish ingenuity could devise. Ugly and devilish as it is, it was probably an improvement on the face it concealed. You are shown the thumbscrew and rack. The thumbscrew would extort a confession from a dead man; and the rack—well, that is something inconceivably devilish. You are laid in a box; ropes on windlasses are tied to your ankles and wrists; then the windlasses are turned, inch by inch, till your joints are dislocated.After enduring the rack and answering questions the way they desired,—for a man in that apparatus would say anything for a moment’s respite—you are hurried to the block for fear you may recant as soon as you get out of it. Then what was said in the rack was put upon record as a testimony on which to rack and behead other people. Those were the “good old days of merrie England.”

THE BYWARD TOWER.[From the West.

THE BYWARD TOWER.[From the West.

THE BYWARD TOWER.

[From the West.

]

MORE MURDER.

During the reign of Edward III. six hundred Jews were imprisoned in the dungeons of the tower for “adulterating the coin of the realm.” The trouble with these Jews was they had too much of the coin of the realm, and Edward too little. The chronicler goes on to say that so strong was the prejudice of the King against these people that he banished the race from England, but, with the thrift that distinguished the Kings of that day, he compelled them to leave behind them their immense wealth, which he gobbled, and their libraries, which, as he couldn’t read he had no use for, went to the monasteries. I suppose he sold them by the pound to the monks who could read. King Edward has a counterpart in the English landlord of to-day. He allows no foreigner to take any money out of the kingdom. It is curious how national traits show in people through ages. England has no moreBarons to take things by the strong hand, but she has hotel-keepers. Their processes are different, but the result is the same. They have no racks now, but they have beds—the thumb-screw is gone forever, but bills are yet made out.

In those days it was not enough to be a heretic or disturber to gain admission to this portal to the tomb; it was only necessary to be suspected, and when a man in favor wanted to get his enemy out of the way, it was very easy to suspect. Talent, usefulness to the State—nothing was proof against it. Cromwell, one of the most brilliant men of his day, Secretary to the still greater Wolsey, on a most frivolous charge, was seized and beheaded. He was becoming too powerful to suit the favorites. Women suffered the same as men, and exalted station went for nothing. Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded please the Spaniards, one of whose Princesses the King desired to marry.

THE MIDDLE TOWER(From the East.)

THE MIDDLE TOWER(From the East.)

THE MIDDLE TOWER

(From the East.)

A large part of the vast building is now used as a great National armory. Stored within its walls are ninety thousand rifles of the latest and most approved patterns, all in perfect order, even to the oiling, and ready for use at a moment’s notice. England is always ready for war. It would be a quick nation that could catch her napping. These murderous weapons looked cheerfully by comparison with the barbarous tools theold English used. After looking at the battle-axes, and flails, and lances, it would seem to be a comfort to be merely shot to death with a Martini Henry rifle. One could feel some sort of comfort in going outviaa decent rifle ball.

THE BEEF EATER.

THE BEEF EATER.

THE BEEF EATER.

THE ANCIENT BEEF EATERS.

The guards of the Tower are the famous “Beef Eaters,”and are all habited in the uniform of the Yeomen of the Guard of the time of Henry VII., who instituted the corps. The present yeomen are all old soldiers, who have distinguished themselves, and a very pleasant time they have of it. They don’t have to drag women to the block by the hair of their heads any more, but spend most of their time standing around listlessly and eating ham sandwiches, which is certainly better than their ancient employment. There is nothing cruel in an English ham sandwich but its indigestibility, and that only concerns the eater. It is a matter entirely between him and his stomach, and does not concern me at all.

THE FLINT TOWER.

THE FLINT TOWER.

THE FLINT TOWER.

The ancient kings did not have as good a time as one would think, for every now and then a baron would raise a rebellion, or a knight would shoot a vicious arrow at him, or the House of Commons would rise, and protest with arms in their hands against his abuses. But their followers, these fellows whose armors are before me this minute, they did have a good time. Their masters found it to their own interest to feed them well, and their little acts of oppression on their own account were winked at. And so they lived a jolly life, their bodies pampered with food, their noses in a constant blush for the liquor they consumed, and with the pick of the daughters of the peasantry, who werehelpless against them. It was no small thing to be a stout man-at-arms in those days, and in the service of a powerful Lord. Fighting was really and literally meat and drink to them, and they actually liked it.


Back to IndexNext