Crown Jewels England
"The Tower in London
is one of the most essential sights in London and
a window into a fascinating and bloody history. Tower is also one of
the city's three World Heritage Sites (the others are Westminster
Abbey and its surrounding buildings and Maritime Greenwich).
[1]. " And the most famous exhibits here are the Crown Jewels
placed in the Jewel House, Waterloo Block.
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"Begun as a simple watchtower, built by William
the Conqueror to keep an eye on the City, the Tower had
evolved into a palace fortress by 1100. The inner curtain wall,
with its numerous towers, was built in the time of Henry
III, and a further line of outer fortifications, plus an
even wider moat, were added by Edward I, which
means that most of what's visible today was already in place by
1307, the year of Edward's death. [2]. "
"The White Tower, the keep at the center of the
complex, dates back to William the Conqueror and
includes the magnificent heavy round arches and groin vaults of
the 13th century St John Chapel. More importantly,
the White Tower corresponds to every myth ever invented
about England. Its history is packed with tales
of royal pageantry, dastardly baronial plots, ghoulish tortures
and gruesome executions. The White Tower is still guarded
by quaint liveried figures, the Beefeaters, who
obligingly conduct their Ceremony of the Keys at 9:45 each evening
(which, as all the literature tells you, involves lots of key-clanking
and praise of the monarch as the chief warder request the opening
of the gates of Byward Tower from a sentry).[3]. "
"For much of its 900 year history the Tower was an object
of fear. Those who had offended the monarch were held within
its dank walls. A lucky few lived in comparative comfort, but the
majority had to put up with appalling conditions. Many did not get
out alive, and were tortured before meeting cruelly violent deaths
on nearby Tower Hill. [4]. "
"The Tower main entrance to the Inner Ward is beneath a 3.5 ton, seven
hundred year old portcullis, which forms part of
the Bloody Tower. Here the 12 year old Edward V
and his 10 year old brother were accommodated "for their own safety"
in 1483 by their uncle, Richard of Gloucester (later
to be Richard III), after the death of their father,
Edward IV.
Of all the Tower's many inhabitants, few have so captured the public
imagination as the "Princes in the Tower", due
in part to Sir Thomas More's detailed account of
their murder. According to More, they were smothered in their beds,
and buried naked at the foot of the Tower.
In 1674, during repair work, the skeletons of two young children
were discovered one on top of the other close to the Tower; they
were subsequently buried in Innocents' Corner in Westminster
Abbey. Some have contended that Richard III
has been the victim of Tudor propaganda, and that
several other people in high places were equally keen to dispose
of the little dears; the jury is still out on this one.
The Bloody Tower's other illustrious inmate even more famous
in his time than the princes was Walter Ralegh,
who spent three separate periods in the Tower.
His first stay was in 1592, when he incurred the displeasure of
Elizabeth I for impregnating one of her ladies
in waiting; his second and longest spell began in 1603, when his
death sentence for suspected involvement in the Gunpowder
Plot was commuted to life imprisonment.
In the event, he spent thirteen years here growing and smoking tobacco
(his most famous import), writing poetry, concocting various
dubious potions in his distillery and completing the first volume
of his History of the World, which in its day outsold even
Shakespeare, despite being banned by James I
for being "too saucy in censuring princes". Ralegh's
study is recreated on the ground floor, while his sleeping quarters,
built especially to accommodate his wife, children and three servants,
are upstairs. When Ralegh complained that the noise
of the portcullis kept him awake at night, he was
moved to much worse accommodation. Ralegh was eventually
released in 1610 and sent off to Guyana to discover
gold, on condition that he didn't attack the Spanish.
He broke his word and was sent straight back to the Tower on his
return in 1618. For six weeks he was imprisoned in "one of the most
cold and direful dungeons", before being beheaded at Westminster.
[5]. "
References
[1] David Else et al.,Britain. Footscray: Lonely Planet Publications
Pty Ltd, 2003.
[2], [5] Rob Humphreys, The Rough Guide To London. London: Rough
Guides Ltd, 2001.
[3] Andrew. Gumbel, London. London: Cadogan Books plc, 1998.
[4] Michael Leapman, Eyewitness Travel Guides London. London: Dorling
Kindersley Limited, 2000.
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I visited the Tower of London in May on an overcast, dreary Friday afternoon. The home of
so many famous executions and king-approved murders is kept in spiffy shape. The tour guide —
a former British sergeant-military wearing a large “Beefeater”-style hat — regaled listeners with
tales of beheadings gone wrong, drunks with axes hacking away at half-dead corpses, never quite
getting a clean cut. Some of the lines of stone near the castle were remnants of the Roman
conquest of England. The castle itself was begun in earnest in 1066, just after the Norman
conquest of England. Within a few centuries, the castle went from being a symbol of foreign
occupation to a symbol of legitimacy. By overshadowing the London landscape, the Tower put
fear into the heart of anyone who considered resisting royal authority — no matter how
murderous the king’s henchmen became.
The tour guide pointed to Traitor’s Gate — where he said the most notorious criminals
were brought directly from the Thames River into the Tower. The Traitor’s Gate was an easy way
to secretly bring detainees into the Tower, unseen by anyone nearby. But looking at English
history, it is difficult to detect a bright moral line separating those who were crowned at
Westminster Abbey and those beheaded in the Tower of London. As usual, politically defined
morality teaches that the good guys kept their heads.
In the yard of the Tower castle was a dark brown sign engraved, “Torture at the Tower.”
Visitors could push a button and hear about the long history of atrocities — of the thumbscrews
and boots used during the 1300s, to more advanced methods used in following centuries. The
Tower had a fearsome reputation in large part because of the unmitigated brutality that was
inflicted in the name of the state.
The Tower was also on my mind as I reread Shakespeare’s Richard III recently. Midway
through the play, the future King Richard accosts Lord Hastings (who had signaled that he would
not support making Richard king) in the Tower. Richard declaimed that he had been bewitched
by the widow of King Edward IV and the “harlot-strumpet Shore” (i.e., Jane Shore, Hastings’s
lover).
Hastings responds, “If they had done this deed, my noble lord —”
Richard replies, “If! thou protector of this damned strumpet, tellest thou me of ‘ifs’? Thou
art a traitor: Off with his head!”
Richard specifies that he would not dine until he sees Hastings’s head.
In the next scene, the lord mayor of London arrives, and Richard deftly explains why he
could not strictly follow “the form of law”:
What, think you we are Turks or infidels?
Or that we would, against the form of law,
Proceed thus rashly to the villain’s death,
But that the extreme peril of the case,
The peace of England and our persons’ safety,
Enforced us to this execution?
Richard condemned Hastings on the basis of an allegation that appeared completely bogus:
Hastings’s refusal to instantly assent to the charge proved his guilt and clinched his fate.
Unfortunately, this has overtones of how the U.S. Defense Department will decide the fate
of detainees seized anywhere in the world in the name of anti-terror — or at least in the name of
George W. Bush.
By act of Congress, the Defense Department is entitled to use accusations ginned up by
torture — as long as the torture occurred before December 30, 2005, the date that President Bush
signed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. Bush appended a Signing Statement to the bill in
which he proclaimed his right to ignore the key provision of the law. But no matter.
Admittedly, it has been a long time since a civilized nation permitted the wholesale
introduction of tortured information into judicial proceedings, even for its kangaroo courts.
Congress has an “out” in the law that permits the military judges to declare that the method of
interrogation is so extreme that the “information” squeezed out the person tortured cannot be
used in court.
However, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will be personally in control of the
process of selecting the judges. Rumsfeld launched much of the torture scandal himself by
approving formerly banned interrogation methods for use in Guantanamo and Iraq.
The American heritage and torture
The American version of kingly justice does not involve beheadings with dinners delayed
until severed heads are paraded around the room. But the reality is not much better to brag about.
People have been condemned to indefinite confinement — brutally interrogated — sometimes
killed — all on the scantiest of evidence.
Rather than a relic of dark bygone times, the Tower of London is now the symbol of
contemporary jurisprudence and enlightened detention facilities — enlightened not because they
incorporate humanitarian principles, but because they sanctify the concept of a supreme leader.
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