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Beauchamp Tower from the East
George Cruikshank
June 1840
Wood-engraving
9.2 cm high by 8.6 cm wide, vignetted
Bottom half of p. 179 in Book II, Ch. X of William Harrison Ainsworth's The Tower of London. A Historical Romance.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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"Three months ago," said the Ambassador, who stood with folded arms at a little distance from them, "within this very chapel, I told the Duke of Northumberland he would occupy that grave. My words have been fulfilled. And I now tell you, Lord Guilford Dudley, and you Lady Jane, that unless you are reconciled with our holy Church, you will rest beside him."
With these words he quitted the chapel, and the guards closing round the captives, they were compelled to follow. During their short walk, Jane passionately implored her husband not to yield to the persuasions of his enemies. He hung his head and returned no answer, and she inferred from his silence, that he was not disposed to yield to her solicitations. They were now close upon the Beauchamp Tower, when Dudley, pointing to a barred window in the upper story of one of its turrets, observed— "Within that room my father parsed the last few weeks of his existence."
Ascending the spiral stone stairs of the tower, they passed beneath the arched doorway, and entered the principal chamber — now used — as has more than once been observed — as the mess-room of the garrison. Here they found Gardiner awaiting their arrival, he was seated on a high backed arm chair between Bonner and Feckenham, who occupied stools on either side of him, while behind him stood the friar who had attended the Duke of Northumberland on the scaffold. Across one of the deep and arched embrazures of the room looking towards the south, a thick curtain was drawn, and before it, at a small table covered with a crimson cloth, on which writing materials were placed, sat a secretary prepared to take down the heads of the disputation. On Jane's appearance, Gardiner and the other ecclesiastics arose and gravely saluted her. [Chapter X. — Of the Conference held between Bishop Gardiner and Lady Jane Grey in the Beauchamp Tower," pp. 179-180]
The White Tower once more claims our attention. Already described as having walls of enormous thickness, this venerable stronghold is divided into four stories including the vaults. The latter consist of two large chambers and a smaller one, with a coved termination at the east, and a deeply-recessed arch at the opposite extremity. Light is admitted to this gloomy chamber by four semicircular-headed loopholes. At the north is a cell ten feet long by eight wide formed in the thickness of the wall, and receiving no light except from the doorway. Here tradition affirms that Sir Walter Raleigh was confined, and composed his History of the World.
Amongst other half-obliterated inscriptions carved on the arched doorway of this dungeon, are these: He that indvreth TO THE ENDE SHALL BE SAVID. M. 10. R. REDSTON. DAR. KENT. Ano. 1553.— Be feithful to the death and I will give the a crown of life. T. Fane. 1554. Above stands Saint John’s Chapel, and the upper story is occupied by the council-chamber and the rooms adjoining. A narrow vaulted gallery, formed in the thickness of the wall, communicating with the turret stairs, and pierced with semicircular-headed openings for the admission of light to the interior, surrounds this story. The roof is covered with lead, and crowned with four lofty turrets, three angular and one square, surmounted with leaden cupolas, each terminated with a vane and crown.
We have spoken elsewhere, and shall have to speak again of the secret and subterranean passages, as well as of the dungeons of the Tower; those horrible and noisome receptacles, deprived of light and air, infested by legions of rats, and flooded with water, into which the wretched captives were thrust to perish by famine, or by more expeditious means; and those dreadful contrivances, the Little Ease—and the Pit; —the latter a dark and gloomy excavation sunk to the depth of twenty feet. [Chapter IV. — "Of The Tower of London; Its Antiquity and Foundation; Its Magnitude and Extent; Its Keep, Palace, Gardens, Fortifications, Dungeons, and Chapels; Its Walls, Bulwarks, and Moat; Its Royal Inmates; Its Constables, Jailors, Warders, and Other Officers; ItsPrisoners, Executions, and Secret Murders," pp. 137-38]
Located in the middle of the western site and functioning at the time of the story as the main entrance to the precincts of the Tower of London, the Beauchamp Tower is semicircular, projecting 5.5 metres beyond the line of the wall. The middle of its three storeys is on a level with the rampart, upon which it originally opened when King Edward I built it. However, the present-day brickwork dates from the reign of Henry VIII. The spacious middle chamber, which a large widow illuminates, is accessed by a wide, circular staircase from ground-level. On the walls of the Beauchamp a host of prisoners have commemorated their tedious stays in a variety of inscriptions in the chambers, the entrance way, and on the passage up the staircase; the most celebrated of these is the ornate coat of arms which John Dudley, fifth son of the Duke of Northumberland, executed during his incarceration in 1553-54.
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Last modified 13 October 2017