The Tower was occupied as a palace by all our Kings and Queens down to Charles II.  It was the custom for each monarch to lodge in the Tower before his coronation, and to ride in procession to Westminster through the city.  The Palace buildings stood eastward of the “Bloody Tower.”

The security of the walls made it convenient as a State prison, the first known prisoner being Ralf Flambard, Bishop of Durham, who had been active under William Rufus in pushing on the buildings.  From that time the Tower was seldom without some captive, English or foreign, of rank and importance.

In the Tudor period the “Green” within the Tower was used on very rare occasions for executions.[1] Condemned prisoners were usually beheaded on

[Footnote 1:  See page 32.]

Tower Hill.

Emerging from the Mark Lane railway station, the visitor obtains an excellent view of the great fortress.  Within the railed space of Trinity Square, the first permanent scaffold on Tower Hill was set up in the reign of Edward III, but the first execution recorded here was that of Sir Simon Burley in 1388.  Here also were beheaded, among others, Dudley, the minister of Henry VII (1510), his son the Duke of Northumberland (1553), his grandson, Lord Guildford Dudley (1554), Cromwell, Earl of Essex (1540), More and Fisher (1535), Surrey (1547), and his son, Norfolk (1572), Strafford (1641), and Archbishop Laud (1645), and the Scotch lords in 1716, 1746, and 1747, the last being Simon, Lord Lovat.

The Tower moat is immediately before us.  It is drained and used as a parade ground.  Beyond it, as we approach the entrance, we have a good view of the fortifications.  On the extreme left are the Brass Mount and North Bastions.  In the middle is Legge’s Mount.  To the right is the entrance gateway.  The highest building behind is the White Tower, easily distinguished by its four turrets.  In front of it are the Devereux, Beauchamp, and Bell Towers, the residences of the Lieutenant of the Tower and of the Yeoman Gaoler being in the gabled and red tiled houses between the last two.  From one of these windows Lady Jane Grey saw her husband’s headless body brought in from Tower Hill, by the route we now traverse; and the leads are still called Queen Elizabeth’s Walk, as she used them during her captivity in 1554.

The Lion Tower

stood where the Ticket Office and Refreshment Room are now.  Here the visitor obtains a pass which admits him to see the Regalia, or Crown Jewels, and another for the Armoury.  In the Middle Ages and down to 1834 the Royal Menagerie was lodged in a number of small buildings near the Lion Tower, whence its name was derived and the saying arose, “seeing the lions,” for a visit to the Tower.  Where the wooden gate now stands, there was a small work called the Conning Gate.  It marked the boundaries of Middlesex and the Tower Precinct.  Here prisoners were handed over to the Sheriff.