12 
The Lecturer, who had a very cordial reception, for about an 
hour and a quarter kept the close attention of the large audience 
by a very racy and descriptive historical account of the famous 
tower, as prison, fortress, and palace, with all that gathered 
round it of tradition, tragedy, and English history, through some 
of the most eventful, stirring and stormy periods in the Roman, 
Tudor, Lancastrian, York, and Stuart Dynasties. 
The only rival of the Tower of London in historical history 
was Westminster Abbey, and between these twin buildings there 
had always been close bonds of association. Kings and Queens 
were crowned at Westminster Abbey, and when they had been 
found guilty of treason they were taken in boats to the Tower 
for execution, the headsman sitting in the stern of the boat with 
the edge of the axe turned towards the condemned prisoners, 
who were received at the Traitors’ Gate, immured in the Tower, 
and there waited their execution on Tower Hill or Tower Green, 
The Lecturer then placed on the screen a plan of the Tower 
showing the moat, now drained and cultivated—though it could 
still be flooded with water—the outer fortifications, bastions, 
entrances, towers, traitors’ gate, the numerous methods of defence 
by inner curtains of walls and portcullis gates, and afterwards 
he conducted the audience through the historic pile, and by 
frequent references to the plan never allowed them once to get 
lost or to lose the thread of historical interest in the scenes of 
blood and tragedy associated through the ages with the Tower. 
One slide represented a list of about forty names of distinguished 
men, all of whom had been concerned with some plot or suspicion 
of some plot—names of persons so near to the direct line of 
succession that they were supposed to be traitors and all executed 
from 1888 to 1747, the last one beheaded being Simon, Lord 
Fraser of Lovatt. The episode which touched the popular 
imagination was the cruel murder of the princes—the infant King 
Edward and his brother Richard, Duke of York—by their uncle 
Richard who thereupon seized the Crown. ‘The Beauchamp 
Tower perhaps afforded the most interest: here Anne Boleyn 
awaited her doom, while Lady Jane Grey with many other 
illustrious personages were imprisoned within its walls, 
A frequently visited place was the ‘‘ Bloody Tower,” so called 
because here were murdered the two princes. Now, however, 
the peaceful symbols of royal power are lodged within its walls. 
Here are kept the Crown Jewels, a mass of goldsmith’s work. 
The Crown of England, the Sceptre, the Orb and Rod, with the 
Swords of Mercy and Justice, the Royal Spurs, Ampulla and 
other royal insignia. 
