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THE BRITISH ISLES. 



Of all the old buildings of London tho Tower is the most venerable. It was 

 erected by William the Conqueror, to the east of the City and on the banks of the 

 Thames, on a site perhaps previously occupied by a Roman castle, for coins of the 

 Empire and the foundations of walls, believed to be very ancient, have been discovered 

 there. Looking across the wide moat of the fortress, now laid out as a garden and 

 drill-ground, there rises boldly and eommandingly the glorious old pile known as 

 the " White Tower." This keep of the anoient fortress, in its simple grandeur, 

 contrasts most advantageously with the pretentious buildings of more modern date 

 which surround it. Its walls, so old chronicles tell us, were " cemented with the 

 blood of animals," and in its neighbourhood the blood of human beings has been 

 shed most freely. Leaving out of account those who fell on both sides during 

 revolutions and civil wars in the defence or attack of the fortress, as also the 

 obscure prisoners wlio were murdered within its precincts, we can count 



F'.?. 94. — Buckingham Palace 



many personages known to history whose heads fell on Tower Green, close 

 to the unpretending church of St. Peter ad Vincula, or on Tower Hill, outside 

 the entrance gate. It was here that the sovereigns of England caused to be 

 beheaded rivals to kingly power, courtiers of whom they had grown tired, wives 

 whom they repudiated. Here, too, perished some of those men whose names are 

 justly venerated in England, and amongst them Algernon Sidney, whom 

 Charles II. caused to be executed in 1685. The " Bloody Tower " was the scene 

 of the murder of the children of Edward IV. The history of the Tower is that of 

 royal crimes. "Upon its blackened walls are painted, in lines of blood, the ambition 

 of Edward I., the luxuriousness of Henry YIIL, the fanaticism of Mary, the cruel 

 vanity of Elizabeth." Long before the destruction of the French Bastille, the 

 Tower of London had twice fallen into the hands of a revolted people ; but neither 

 Wat Tyler nor Jack Cade thought of demolishing the fortress, which up to 1820 

 served as a state prison. The Tower is now used as an arsenal and armoury, 



