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The Brick Tower and Flint Tower were rebuilt in the nineteenth century, as was the upper storey of the
Bowyer Tower, which retains the original vaulted chamber at ground level. In the Bowyer Tower, by a
plausible tradition, George Duke of Clarence, a brother of Edward IV, after his conviction for treason, was
privately executed in 1478 by drowning in a butt of his favourite malmsey wine.
The Devereux Tower, confronting the troublesome city of London at the north–west corner of the inner
ward, is of exceptional strength. It takes its name from Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, a prisoner there at the
end of Elizabeth’s reign, before his execution on Tower Green nearby.
The Beauchamp Tower, built by Edward I in about 1281, replaced the twin-towered gatehouse of Henry
III’s time which had controlled the landward entrance to his castle across the moat, and actually incorporated
the foundations of the earlier building. The interior of the Beauchamp Tower reveals the extensive use of brick,
a notable feature of Edward I’s work at the Tower and, on this scale, an innovation in English castle-building.
Along the entire length of the adjoining curtain wall, from the Devereux Tower to the Bell Tower, ran a
gallery with embrasures and arrow loops through which archers could command the outer defences towards the
city. When only a few years later the outer curtain wall was heightened above the level of the loops, this
elaborate arrangement was made useless.
The Beauchamp Tower takes its name from Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, whom Richard II
imprisoned in it from 1397 to 1399. With ample accommodation for a nobleman and his household within its
three storeys, and under the eye of the Constable or his deputy residing nearby, where Queen’s House now
stands, the Beauchamp Tower was especially suitable for prisoners of high rank. In Mary I’s reign, John
Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and his five sons were held here; in Elizabeth I’s reign Philip Howard, Earl
of Arundel, died within its walls; and here Lord Cobham spent the last fourteen years of his life in the reign of
James I.
The Bell Tower and the adjoining curtain wall up to the Bloody Tower date from the first enlargement of
the Tower in the 1190s; at that time they stood on the edge of the river. The Bell Tower was supported by a
rubble platform, and its solid base, 16 feet (5 m) high, was protected at ground level by a stepped plinth. The
tower was probably built in two phases, the original polygonal shape being changed at the second storey to a
circular plan. The curfew bell has been rung from this tower for at least 500 years: the present bell dates from
1651.
Probably from the beginning the Constable’s house adjoined the Bell Tower, so that the officer in
command of the castle should reside at this key point in its defences, facing the river and the city. Under the
Tudors, when a major responsibility of the Constable’s resident deputy, the Lieutenant, was the safekeeping of
prisoners, the Bell Tower became the lodging of captives of the highest importance, such as Sir Thomas More,
Princess Elizabeth (the future Elizabeth I), Arabella Stuart, cousin of James I, and perhaps also the Duke of
Monmouth, natural son of Charles II.
Before the building of St Thomas’s Tower, the gatetower which was to become the Bloody Tower
controlled the Watergate. After that it gave access from the outer ward to the inner ward. The upper stage of the
present tower was largely reconstructed in the reign of Edward III, about 1360. The first floor contains the
windlass that still operates the portcullis at the front of the gatehall below. Originally, there was a second
portcullis, worked from the other side of the room. The room was intended to be superior accommodation,
perhaps a guest chamber or office for the use of the Constable who lived nearby. It contains a good fireplace, a
large side window which once had window seats, and a floor covered with richly decorated tiles. Eventually
this tower was to accommodate such eminent prisoners as two Archbishops of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer (in
1553 – 1554) and William Laud
(in 1640 – 1645), and a Lord Chancellor, Jeffreys of the ‘Bloody Assizes’ (in 1688 – 1689).
Once known as the Garden Tower, since it adjoined the Lieutenant’s garden, this tower at some time in the
Tudor period came to be called the Bloody Tower, because (so James I was told when he visited the Tower in
1604) it was there that the ‘Princes in the Tower’ had been murdered.
The princes, twelve-year-old Edward and his younger brother, the sons of Edward IV had been lodged in
the Tower, following their father’s death in 1483, under the protection of their uncle, Richard Duke of
Gloucester. Preparations began for Edward’s coronation but in the event it was their uncle who was crowned in
his place as Richard III. The princes remained in the Tower for a time and then were lost to view. Much has
been written about their fate, largely in order to prove or disprove Richard’s complicity in their deaths, but no
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