The Tower of London

 

The Tower of London was a lot bigger than we thought.  It was a castle, had a church in it, an armoury, a prison, had a torture room, towers and huge walls all around it that were over 4 meters thick. It also had a moat surrounding it that came from the river Thames and some kings kept exotic animals there such as lions, tigers, elephants and baboons. Ravens are a very important part of the legend of the Tower of London, it is said that if the ravens leave the city will fall.  King Henry VIII and his wives and children lived within the Tower walls and so did Richard the I (King Henry VIII son).  

When Edward IV died in 1483 his 12 and 9 year old sons Edward and Richard were locked away in the Tower of London by Edward IV brother Richard, the Duke of Glouster.  The boys were never seen again and Richard became King Richard III.  200 years later while repairs were being done to the castle a large chest was found buried under the stairs with the two boys skeletons inside.  They were reburied in Westminster Abbey.

 We had a look at the Bloody Tower and the Torture Room where they had some of the tools of torture on display.  The most painful one of all was called the Scavangers Daughter where the prisoner was compressed so hard that they bled from their ears and nose, they rarely survived this.  They also had the rack which stretched the prisoner until their limbs popped out of their sockets.  There a metal collar with blunt spikes inside that you could put around your wife's neck if she had a "sharp" tongue or bad temper which was a humiliating penance for her.  Not many people were tortured or executed within the tower of London, there were other prisons in London for this.  One famous man that was tortured for 10 days and then beheaded was Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

We saw the monument in Tower Green that stood where the people had been beheaded.  Only 10 people were beheaded in The Tower of London, as to be beheaded there you had to be of high nobility or be a prisoner that had a large following of the people that the king didn't want their to death to be witnessed.  Anne Boleyn the second wife of Henry VIII and her sister Jane Boleyn as well as their cousin Cathryn Howard were all beheaded here as well as Lord Hastings, Margaret Pole, Viscountess Rocheford and Robert Devereux.

King Henry VIII also died in the Tower of London, he was sick in bed for 8 days and then died of heart failure at the age of 56, he is buried in St George's Cathedrial in WIndsor Castle.

We looked at all of the armour and weapons kept in the tower and we had a walk ontop of the walls of the tower and around the grounds. Afterwards we walked over the Tower  Bridge where William Wallace's head was put on a spike after he was tortured and executed.

We thought the Tower of London was a very gruesome but interesting part of our history.

Drew and Hannah.