brilliant soldier, sailor, adventurer, and philosopher, into the Tower once more, and in 1618 he was put to death by a cruelty which still stains the recollection of James. In 1621, two remarkable men were confined in the Tower at the same period-the great Lord Bacon, charged with corruption, and Sir Edward Coke, obnoxious to the crown for the resolution which he displayed in defence of the privileges of the Commons. In the same year another committal was made, which might be adopted with advantage in later times. It was the committal of the Earl of Arundel for insult, in a debate, to Lord Spenser. By a curious coincidence with the holder of the title in our time, the Lord Spenser of the seventeenth century was devoted to agriculture, a taste which probably brought on him some scorn from the more aristocratic families. To some casual remarks by Lord Spenser on the ancestors of Lord Arundel, the latter contemptuously replied, "My Lord, when those you speak of were doing, your ancestors were keeping sheep. Lord Spencer's answer was sharper still,-"True, my lord, but when my ancestors were keeping sheep, yours were plotting treason." A hot dispute followed, when Arundel, as having given the first provocation, was ordered by the House to apologise, which he refusing, was sent by the peers to the Tower, from which, however, he was speedily liberated on making the apology. The Gunpowder Plot, in 1605, again filled the dungeons. The Tower, in every reign, seems to have acted the part of a sort of stage of existence to all the leading men of the country in succession. The Earl of Oxford was committed for objecting to the marriage treaty of Charles with the Infanta. The Earl of Bris tol, Ambassador to Spain, followed him on the same grounds. The Earl of Middlesex, lord treasurer, followed in turn. The reign of Charles began with committals, but even those showed a coming change in the political aspect of the country. The king. indignant at the persecution of the Duke of Buckingham by the Commons, committed Sir Dudley Digges, and Sir John Elliot, who had been active in the impeachment. The Commons manded their liberation, and the king was forced to comply; the first practical evidence that the Commons were rising into strength, and that the Throne was about to be shorn of its supremacy. This dispute was the source of a desperate deed, which for a while startled the whole kingdom, the assassination of the Duke by Felton. On the private examination of the murderer, he declared that he had resolved on the act by no suggestion or temptation of any man, but by reading, the "Remonstrance of Parliament," which he regarded as his sufficient warrant for killing the Duke. Later discoveries of correspondence show him to have been merely a bold enthusiast, heated into the belief that it was his duty to rid the kingdom of a powerful profligate, who was capable of misleading the kingdom. Felton's only requests to the monarch were, that he might be allowed to receive the communion before he was executed, and that he might be allowed to wear sackcloth, to sprinkle ashes on his head, and to carry a halter round his neck, in penitence for shedding the blood of a man so unprepared to die. But frantic as this shows him, he had the sense to make a memorable remark, which produced perhaps the most effective reform that a single observation ever effected. On being told by Lord Dorset, that, unless he gave up his instigators or his accomplices, confession would be forced from him by the torture, he turned to the Lords of Council, and, after declaring that he was altogether without associates, he said " Yet this I must tell you, that, if I be put upon the rack, I will accuse you, my Lord Dorset, and none but yourself." The strong light in which this answer put the absurdity of expecting truth from terror, or any hesitation in the means of escaping from intolerable agony, instantly showed the imperfection of torture as an instrument of justice. Its use immediately passed away, and the rack was abolished first by custom, and afterwards by law. Felton was imprisoned in the Tower, and taken for trial to Westminster. He there boldly pleaded guilty; but, with a mixture of his former fanaticism, he held up his arm, and desired, that when he came to the scaffold that arm, which had shed the Duke's blood, should be cut off first. He was hung at Tyburn, and gibbeted at Ports. mouth, where he had committed the murder. But terrible times were at hand, and the Tower became the scene of many a last struggle of noble lives. In January 1640, the Earl of Strafford was impeached at the bar of the Lords by Pym, and, after a defence distinguished for talent and dignity, during a trial of seventeen days, was committed to the tower, from which he came only to die, May 12, 1641. In his last hours he spoke three sentences, which mark at once the depth of his feelings, the steadiness of his courage, and the foresight of his understanding. On hearing of the King's assent to his death, the Earl exclaimed, in melancholy contempt for the miserable weakness that could have thus signed his fate-" Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men, for in them is no salvation." When the lieutenant of the Tower, fearful that the populace, who had been studiously inflamed against this gallant nobleman, would tear him in pieces on his way to the scaffold, wished him to go in a carriage, Strafford refused, saying "I dare look death in the face, and I trust I can the people." When he stood on the scaffold, he told the multitude, "That the reform which began in blood would disappoint their expectations." Then declaring his adherence to the Church of England, his fidelity to the king, and his good wishes for the country, he laid his head on the block, and perished. Archbishop Land, the primate, was committed to the Tower in September 1640; and the government of the fortress becoming now an object of great interest to the Parliament, the king's governor was forced to give it up, and it became virtually the fortress of that House of Commons which now governed the government, and which was prepa ring to abolish the monarchy. The Church had now become the great object of attack, as the bulwark of the throne: and, on the 30th of December 1641, twelve bishops were at once committed to the Tower. In the February of next year, they were admitted to bail by the Lords; but the Commons were now masters of the Lords, and on their rebukes the unfortunate prelates were a rain committed, and remained in durance for a twelvemonth longer. Even they were more lucky than the Bishop of Ely, whose committal had followed theirs, and who was left in prison eighteen years without a trial, and almost without a charge. Even in our own day, it may be useful to us to see the workings of a democracy two hundred years ago. After a two years' imprisonment the primate was brought to trial; but the utter emptiness of all the charges was so palpable, that nothing but popular rage or judicial servility could have condemed him. However, the dexterity of the Commons' lawyer was able to manage this. "Though," said Sergeant Wilde, "no one separate crime of the archbishop does amount to treason or felony, we do contend that all his misdemeanours put together by way of accumulation, do make many grand treasons"—an intolerable stretch of tyranny which Herne, the archbishop's counsel, happily ridiculed by saying, "I crave your mercy, good Mr Sergeant, but I never understood before that two hundred couple of black rabbits make a black horse." Laud, after a trial miserably protracted through eight months, was attainted of high treason by the Commons; and though nothing could confessedly be more futile than the accusations, or more contrary to law than the sentence, this learned and innocent man, the first prelate of the church, and the first subject of the throne, was beheaded on Tower Hill, January 10, 1644. In those days of terror no public man could feel himself in safety for a day. Even the crafty General Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, who was dexterous enough to bewilder the nation, was not sufficiently crafty to escape the Commons. They threw him into the Tower, where he remained a prisoner for three years, in every one of which he must have expected to be led to the block; and he was finally released only by taking a commission under the Commons. Nothing escaped the grasp of this furious democracy. The king's general, the Marquis of Winchester, was lodged in the Tower; the next seizure was of the Lord Mayor of London, the Recorder, three of the Aldermen, and several of the citizens who had made some objection to the robberies of the Commonwealth troopers. The last effort of the royal fortunes, the unhappy battle of Worcester in 1651, threw the chiefs of the routed army, the Marquis of Worcester, the Earls of Crawford, Lauderdale, and others, into the dungeon. But the scale was now weighing down on the royal side, and the rebels were forced to feel the retaliation due to blood and rapine. The judges who had tried Charles, the Council who had impeached him, and every man who had a share in shedding the royal blood, were all driven to flight, or thrown into the Tower. But monarchy is always merciful in comparison with democracy. Excepting those who were the declared murderers of the king, nearly all the prisoners were subsequently liberated. From the Tower, Charles proceeded in pomp to Westminster, in April 1661. This procession is mentioned, merely from its being the last that ever took place from this ominous spot; but it was also one of the most sumptuous. While making his royal residence in the Tower for some days before, Charles recruited the shattered ranks of his nobility and knighthood, by a creation of Earls, Barons, and no less than sixty-eight Knights of the Bath, who, with their esquires, made a showy part of the procession, the knights habited in "mantles and surcoats of red taffeta, with buttons and tassels of silk and gold, and white hats and plumes:" such is the description of the chronicler. But the pageant itself more than equalled the old celebrations. The popular disgust for the democracy was so great, and the feeling of national good fortune in getting rid of that dreadful period of robbery, tyranny, and bloodshed, was so exulting and universal, that the whole city was unbounded in its demonstrations of rejoicing at the return of monarchy. Triumphal arches were erected in every quarter, pageants and dramatic spectacles displayed, the houses hung with decorations, to such an extent of costliness and splendour, that we are told, in the language of the time, "even the vaunting French confessed the pomps of the late marriage with the Infanta of Spain, at their majesties' entrance into Paris, to be inferior in taste, gallantry, and riches, to this most glorious cavalcade from the Tower." But there was one melancholy example in the reign of the indolent and showy monarch, the death of Lord Russell. The trial of this noble sufferer is familiar matter of history; but there can be no doubt that he died by the just sentence of the law. He had unquestionably stooped to be a conspirator, and his connexion with treason at home, and intrigues abroad, justly brought him within sight of the scaffold. Yet his cause was excellent; his misfortune was the weakness of understanding which borrowed lawless means for meritorious objects. Charles would have shown himself more mereiful if he had pardoned Russell. He would have also shown himself wiser, for the popular sorrow for the execu tion of this rash but sincere victim of the popular cause, extinguished every trace of public value for the monarch; Russell's memory fell heavy on the head of James; and his blood was among the powerful impeachments which drove out the Stuart dynasty. Blood will have blood. Charles died within a year, and the first victim of the next reign was his own son. The death of Charles in 1684 made the nation feel the formidable differerence between an indolent sovereign and a busy tyrant. But the first blow fell on the unhappy Duke of Monmouth, an object of the king's jealousy for his favouritism with Charles, and of alarm for his popularity with the nation. After the battle of Sedgemoor, in July 1685, he was committed to the Tower. On the 15th, in two days after his committal, he was led to the scaffold, the bill of attainder precluding the necessity of a formal trial. He had humbled himself before the king; but the savage spirit of the monarch was not to be softened by the nearness of his relationship. James had once insultingly told a prisoner, "that it was in his power to forgive." The bold and true answer was "Yes, but it is not in your nature." The death of Monmouth was manly. After answering the charges of high treason cruelly pressed on him, while the block was before his eyes, he turned to the headsman, and desired him to perform his office better than he had done it for Lord Russell." He took up the axe, and remarked that it was not sharp enough." Being assured that it was, he laid down his head. A melancholy incident gave additional obnoxiousness to this act of the hard-hearted and ma lignant James. The executioner, probably intimidated by the rank of the victim, struck an erring blow; and the unhappy duke lifted up his eyes, and gave him a look as if to reproach him. After two more attempts equally incomplete, the man flung down the axe, exclaiming, that it was beyond his power. But being compelled by the sheriffs to strike again, after two more blows, he finally effected the decapi tation. But the period was at hand when England was to be no longer burdened with the double weight of bigotry and tyranny. In 1688 the royal" Declaration of Indulgence," an act which, under the pretext of giving liberty to the dissenters, was, in fact, an authentication of popery, and a subversion of the Church of England, awoke the whole nation to a sense of the public danger. The king, with the infatuation which prepared him for ruin, haughtily insisted that the suicidal manifesto should be read by the clergy in their churches. The seven bishops, who carried up the appeal of the Establishment to the throne, were taunted by the king as traitors, and committed to the Tower. The truth of the proverb, "that those whom Providence means to destroy, it first makes mad," was never more fully realized. The terror first, and then the indignation of the whole city, had no effect upon James; the shouts of applause, and the prayers which ran from the thousands who crowded the river side, as the bishops passed to the Tower, were disregarded; the rejoi cings of the country on their acquittal, and even the acclamations of the army, had no power to open the king's eyes to the gulf at his feet. But his ruin now hastened on, hour by hour; and, in December of the same year, he fled from England never to return. The Tower now received one in whose seizure the nation rejoiced scarcely less than in the king's ignominious exile; this was the atrocious and murderous Judge Jefferies. He had been arrested in Wapping, in the attempt to escape to France, after being saved with difficulty from the hands of the multitude, who would have torn him in pieces; the villain was sent to the dungeon which he had so often contributed to fill with men incomparably more innocent. There he remained in confinement until he died, as it was said, of excessive drinking. The attempts of the Stuarts to raise conspiracies for their restoration, disturbed the early years of William's government, and added largely to the unhappy records of the Tower. Even the famous John Churchill was imprisoned on the charge of a correspondence with the exiles. In 1712, the celebrated Sir Robert Walpole, late Secretary at War, was committed for a breach of trust in a contract for forage; a charge which originated in party violence, and which did not afterwards prevent his rising to the Premiership. In 1715, a period of great anxiety, the Earl of Oxford, Earl Powis, and Sir William Windham, one of the most celebrated speakers in Parliament, were all committed on a charge of correspondence with the Pretender. The unfortunate Earl of Derwentwater and Lord Kenmure were beheaded on Tower Hill, for sharing in the Scottish insurrection of 1715. In 1722, a new conspiracy in favour of the Pretender fell heavily upon men of rank; and Atterbury, bishop of Rochester, one of the most eloquent preachers and accomplished scholars of the age, the Earl of Orrery, Lords North and Grey, were committed on the charge of an intention to seize the Tower, and raise an insurrection in favour of the Stuarts. The unhappy attempt of 1745, which closed the efforts of this singular and unaccountable interest in the fortunes of a family who had involved Scotland, no less than England, in suffering, brought the severities of the law on many gallant and high-born men. The romantic loyalty of the Scots was repaid by the Tower; and the Earls of Kilmarnock and Cromartie, the Marquis of Tullibardine, the Lords Balmerino and Lovat, Sir John Douglas, Charles Ratcliff, the younger brother of Lord Derwentwater, and William Murray, were immured; Kilmarnock and Balmerino were beheaded on Tower Hill in August 1746, Ratcliff in the December following, and old Lovat in March of the following year. Though throughout his earlier career he had exhibited every contemptible quality, he died with firmness, professed to be a sufferer for the popular cause, quoted Horace on the glory of perishing for our country, and submitted to the blow which put an end to his hopes, at eighty, of being a duke, the true motive of his absurd rebellion. These were the last executions which ever took place on Tower Hill. Subsequently the committals have been few, and of persons either insignificant, or charged with insignificant offences; and it is to be presumed that its use as a state prison is at an end. The armoury, which has just been burned down, was the largest building in the Tower-345 feet long, by 60 deep; it was commenced in the reign of James II., and finished in the reign of William and Mary. It was three stories high, and contained a vast quantity of military stores, always prepared for immediate service. Its front was stately, and it had a pediment carved by Gibbons, which we believe has been saved. The ground floor contained artillery; the first floor muskets to the amount of nearly 200,000, ranged in figures of stars, and in other forms, which exhibited remarkable ingenuity; and the upper floor was filled with lighter materials of camp equipage. Some of the heavy guns are saved, others half melted, the muskets are almost wholly destroyed. The White Tower, long assigned to the keeping of the records, and most injudiciously at the same time turned into a gunpowder store, has remained untouched, though a shift of the wind would have inevitably involved it in the general ruin. It is to be hoped that the narrowness of the escape will teach more wisdom in future, and that it will cease to be a deposit of either the records or the powder. The horse armoury would probably have been the cause of the greatest regret if it had perished; for its contents would have been altogether beyond the power of reparation-containing as it does the arms (and armour) of some of the chief historic characters of England. So late as the year 1826, it was scarcely more than a vulgar show, demonstrating the most extraordinary ignorance in its compilers, mingling the armour of different ages on the same person, and confusing every recollection of history. But at that period the Government directed a new arrangement to take place, under the inspecsion of Dr Meyrick, known by his researches on the subject; and the new hall, a noble apartment, 149 feet long, and 33 wide, was erected for the reception of those figures of chivalry. We have there the armour of Edward IV., of Henry VI., of Henry VII., Henry VIII., Charles I., with the armour of others scarcely less known— Leicester, Essex, Buckingham, Stafford, &c. &c. But out of twenty-two, the ownership of but twelve can be ascertained. The preservation of the crown jewels was a matter of great importance from their value, and from the necessity of purchasing others if they had been destroyed. They were also amongst the oldest possessions of the crown, for it is scarcely possible to ascertain how far back the first collection began. Some of them appeared to have been deposited in the Tower as early as 1230. But those jewels were then of use for other purposes than show. They served to raise money in the royal necessities, and were frequently sent as pawns round Europe. The mastership of the jewel office thus became an appointment of no slight importance; and even so late as the times of Charles II., after many deductions, the income amounted to £1300 a-year, a sum which, allowing for the rate of money and living since, would now be at least equal to £2000. The chief anecdote connected with the jewels, is the attempt of Colonel Blood, in the time of Charles II., to carry off the crown. Blood was a disbanded officer of the Protectorate, of desperate means, and who was ready for any desperate action. Nothing is more surprising than that he failed; for the jewels were wholely unprotected, their sole guardians being an old man and his wife and daughter, with whom one of the captain's accomplices carried on a flirtation. Knocking down the old man, they had seized the crown and orb, and had contrived to escape as far as the outward gate, where horses were ready for them, when they were pursued, and, after some resistance, taken. This singular attempt has been still unexplained; and it was shrewdly conjectured that Charles himself, whose profligacy always kept him poor, and who was never encumbered with scruples of any kind, was even the principal in the transaction. It was remarked as an extraordinary circumstance, that the king insisted on his being brought to Whitehall to be examined by himself; that Blood behaved with all the effrontery of a man secure of pardon; that he boasted of the rob |
