Архитектурные шедевры Великобритании. Рябцева Е.В. - 37 стр.

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conclusive evidence has been produced on either side. Even the bones of two children found buried close to the
White Tower in 1674, which were officially reburied in Westminster Abbey as the remains of the princes,
cannot be positively identified.
Certainly there have been two authenticated cases of violent death within the Bloody Tower. In 1585 the
8
th
Earl of Northumberland shot himself to escape conviction for treason and the forfeiture of his family lands
to Elizabeth I. In James I’s reign, in scandalous circumstances which touched even the King himself, Sir
Thomas Overbury was poisoned while a prisoner there.
The Bloody Tower is now furnished as it might have appeared during the thirteen-year imprisonment (1603
– 1616) of Sir Walter Ralegh by James I. Indeed, to allow Ralegh and his family more living space, the tower
was heightened and a new floor inserted, making the present upper chamber.
Adjoining the Bell Tower, in the south-west comer of the inner ward, stands an L-shaped, timber-framed
Tudor building, originally known as the Lieutenant’s Lodgings. Its present name ‘Queen’s House’, dates from
Queen Victoria’s reign, and changes according to whether the sovereign is king or queen. Queen’s House is
now occupied by the Resident Governor, the Lieutenant’s successor as officer with local command of the
Tower. It is not open to the public.
Many prisoners of high rank were lodged there, under the personal supervision of the Lieutenant, the first,
by Tower tradition, being Anne Boleyn, the second of Henry VIII’s six wives to be followed five years later by
his fifth wife, Catherine Howard. In the Council Chamber on the upper floor of Queen’s House is an elaborate
contemporary memorial commemorating the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, which followed the ex-
amination in this room of Guy Fawkes before and after torture.
One prisoner in the Lieutenant’s care managed to take his leave unknown to his host the night before he
was to be executed. The Scottish Jacobite Earl of Nithsdale, captured after the defeat of the 1715 rebellion, es-
caped from Queen’s House, rouged and in woman’s clothing which had been smuggled in by his indomitable
wife.
The last prisoner to be given accommodation in Queen’s House was Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Fuhrer of
Nazi Germany, for four days in May 1941.
On the other side of Tower Green seven notable prisoners were executed. The first was William, Lord
Hastings, in 1483, hurriedly beheaded after his arrest at a meeting of the royal council in the White Tower at the
instance of the Protector, Richard of Gloucester. The next five victims were the only women to suffer death by
beheading for treason. Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, Henry’s fifth wife, had both been convicted of
adultery. Jane, Viscountess Rochford, Catherine’s lady-in-waiting, was implicated in her crime. One offence of
the aged Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, in the eyes of the Tudor Henry VIII, was her Yorkist blood, just
as Lady Jane Grey, a victim of her cousin, Mary I, suffered for her descent from Henry VII which made her,
despite herself, a rival to Mary. These women were all spared public execution on Tower Hill, the customary
place for beheadings, to avoid embarrassing them as well as the monarch. The last of the seven, the Earl of
Essex, the young favourite of Elizabeth I, may have been singled out for the same reason, although the Queen’s
ministers were more concerned with Essex’s dangerous popularity among the Londoners and no doubt feared
what might happen if he were taken out to Tower Hill.
Answer the following questions.
1. Which events are connected with the Martin Tower?
2. What is the interior of the Beauchamp Tower?
3. What was the original design of the Bell Tower?
4. How was the Bloody Tower reconstructed?
5. What was the first name of the Bloody Tower?
6. Why did the Bloody Tower get such a name?
7. What building is now known as Queen’s House?

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