The lions of the Tower—once its chief attraction with the many—have disappeared. Since the establishment of the Zoological Gardens, curiosity having been drawn in that direction, the dens of the old menagerie are deserted, and the sullen echoes of the fortress are no longer awakened by savage yells and howling. With another and more important attraction—the armouries—it is not our province to meddle.
To return to Simon Renard and the warder. Having concluded his recital, to which the other listened with profound attention, seldom interrupting him with a remark, Winwike proposed, if his companion’s curiosity was satisfied, to descend.
“You have given me food for much reflection,” observed Renard, aroused from a reverie into which he had fallen; “but before we return I would gladly walk round the buildings. I had no distinct idea of the Tower till I came hither.”
The warder complied, and led the way round the battlements, pausing occasionally to point out some object of interest.
Viewed from the summit of the White Tower, especially on the west, the fortress still offers a striking picture. In the middle of the sixteenth century, when its outer ramparts were strongly fortified, when the gleam of corslet and pike was reflected upon the dark waters of its moat, when the inner ballium walls were entire and unbroken, and its thirteen towers reared their embattled fronts, when within each of those towers state prisoners were immured, when its drawbridges were constantly raised, and its gates closed, when its palace still lodged a sovereign, when councils were held within its chambers, when its secret dungeons were crowded, when Tower Hill boasted a scaffold, and its soil was dyed with the richest and best blood of the land, when it numbered among its inferior officers, jailers, torturers, and an executioner, when all its terrible machinery was in readiness, and could be called into play at a moment’s notice, when the steps of Traitor’s Gate were worn by the feet of those who ascended them, when, on whichever side the gazer looked, the same stern prospect was presented—the palace, the fortress, the prison—a triple conjunction of fearful significance, when each structure had dark secrets to conceal, when beneath all these ramparts, towers, and bulwarks, were subterranean passages and dungeons—then, indeed, it presented a striking picture both to the eye and mind.
Slowly following his companion, Renard counted all the towers, which, including that whereon he was standing, and those connected with the bulwarks and palace, amounted to twenty-two, marked their position, commented upon the palace, and the arrangement of its offices and outbuildings, examined its courts and gardens, inquired into the situation of the queen’s apartments, and was shown a long line of buildings with a pointed roof, extending from the south-east angle of the keep to the Lanthorn Tower, admired the magnificent prospect of the heights of Surrey and Kent, traced the broad stream of the Thames as far as Greenwich, suffered his gaze to wander over the marshy tract of country towards Essex, noted the postern gate in the ancient city walls, standing at the edge of the north bank of the moat, traced those walls by their lofty entrances from Aldgate to Cripplegate, and from thence returned to the church of All Hallows Barking, and Tower Hill. The last object upon which his gaze rested was the scaffold. A sinister smile played upon his features as he gazed on it.
“There,” he observed, “is the bloody sceptre by which England is ruled. From the palace to the prison is a step—from the prison to the scaffold another.”
“King Henry the Eighth gave it plenty of employment,” observed Winwike.
“True,” replied Renard; “and his daughter, Queen Mary, will not suffer it to remain idle.”
“Many a head will, doubtless, fall (and justly), in consequence of the late usurpation,” remarked the warder.
“The first to do so now rests within that building,” rejoined Renard, glancing at the Beauchamp Tower.
“Your worship, of course, means the Duke of Northumberland, since his grace is confined there,” returned the warder. “Well, if she is spared who, though placed foremost in the wrongful and ill-advised struggle, was the last to counsel it, I care not what becomes of the rest. Poor Lady Jane! Could our eyes pierce yon stone walls,” he added, pointing to the Brick Tower, “I make no doubt we should discover her on her knees. She passes most of her time, I am informed, in prayer.”