Look at the Tower [antikvár]

Introduction More than nine centuries ago, William the Conqueror, after his victory at Hastings in October 1066 and before his coronation on Christmas Day, began building the Tower of London. The site he selected was at the furthermost point within the old Roman wall, which was still standing, and alongside the River Thames - an admirable position for dealing with invaders coming up the river and also for quelling riots and rebellions in London. To begin with a temporary fortification was constructed, flanked on two sides by the Roman wall, a section of which can still be seen; to protect the other two sides a ditch was dug running north from the river and turning east to complete the enclosure. The earth from the ditch was used to form a high embankment, on top of which a timber palisade was erected with embrasures and loopholes for archers and men with catapults. The first permanent structure, by far the most attractive and most formidable, was . the White Tower, the immense central structure (1). Its construction, begun in 1078, was entrusted to a Norman monk named Gundulf, who had been designing and building castles and cathedrals in Normandy. In the centuries that followed the Kings kept strengthening and expanding the Tower by enclosing it first by a high Inner Wall with twelve towers built into it; the Thames washed the southern side of the wall and there were water-gates and stairs for those who used boats. Then a second wall was built, an Outer Wall, encircling the White Tower and its dozen satellite towers. Eight further towers were built into the Outer Wall, then a Moat was dug and supplied with water from the river; and later beyond it a Wharf was built. The hulk of this fortification and expansion, which added three more towers round the White Tower, took about four centuries. There are now twenty towers. The Tower was not merely a fortress. It had a wide diversity of uses. The Royal residence was there, as well as the Privy Council Chamber, the Courts of Justice, the Royal Mint, the National Observatory and the Zoo, which was started by Henry IE in 1255 and moved to Regent's Park six centuries later; until then the public went to the Tower to look at the animals. The Public Records were kept in the Tower until moved to Chancery Lane, and of course the Crown Jewels. There was a factory for making bows and arrows and later firearms. It was also a prison. Many thousands of prisoners were confined here including the English Kings Richard II, Henry VI, Edward V, some Scottish and French Kings and Dauphins; Queens Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey and Elizabeth I when she was a Princess; Archbishops, Bishops, Chancellors, Generals -among these were the Archbishops of Canterbury, Cranmer and Laud; the Duke of Marlborough, Sir Winston Churchill's ancestor; Sir Walter Raleigh; Samuel Pepys; and numerous lords and ladies, including three Dukes of Norfolk; Charles II's illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth; the Duke of Northumberland; the Earl of Essex, a favourite of Queen Elizabeth; and many, many more. During the two World Wars of the present century Sir Roger Casement, arrested for smuggling German arms into Ireland, was a prisoner here, in the First; Rudolf Hess, Hitler's Deputy Führer, in the Second. King John, already married twice, the second time to a fourteen-year-old French heiress, fell madly m love with Lord Fitzwalter's pretty daughter Maud. Finding her unresponsive he imprisoned her in the Tower and continued his courting there; but