making a noise when on sentry will be sent a prisoner to the Main Guard." There are many old Warder's stories which have been handed down from mouth to mouth, but as many of these are apocryphal and others based on slender evidence it has been thought better at the request of the Warders themselves to omit these. Those who have any further curiosity may consult a friendly Warder when they visit the Tower of London, and doubtless he will oblige them with any stories that have come to his knowledge. It is, however, permissible to give a modern story: Soon after the Americans joined the Allies in the Great War a party of some fifty non-commissioned officers, with three or four commissioned officers were quartered at the Tower of London for a week or more, on their way to France. The rules regarding entry into the Tower are at all times strict, specially so at nighttime, and more especially in time of war. It so happened that one night an American officer of this party, probably unaware of these rules and regulations, arrived after the gates had been locked, and asked for admission to his quarters. The sentry on the Gate, in accordance with his orders, called the Yeoman Warder on night duty, to interview the American officer and explain the situation. 'Say, Warder, I want to get through and to bed and the sentry says I can't anyhow." 66 No, sir, I am afraid you can't," replied the Yeoman Warder. "No one is allowed through after the Gate is shut." "But I'm an American officer and quartered here time being and ain't going to steal the Crown Jewels or anything, only just go to bed like a good boy." Very sorry indeed, sir, I can't let in. If you was King of England1 I couldn't let you in." 66 66 you 'Wal, I ain't King of England. But say, sonny, what'd the King of England do if he was shut off his bed like this?" 1 This was poetic licence. The King of England can enter at any hour. "Well, sir, I don't know what the King of England would do, but what the officers does when locked out is either to sleep in their cabs, or in the guard room, till the gates are opened in the morning." "Wal, I ain't going to tick up half dollars all night in a taxi-cab, so I'll sleep in the guard room." And so he did. Next morning at breakfast he burst into the Officers' Mess, where he was an Honorary Member, simply beaming. "My! It was just Bully! I wouldn't have missed it for worlds. Locked up like Lady Jane Grey and all that lot in the old Tower of London! Snakes, it was fine, the greatest adventure of my life. There's hundreds of folks over in the States would give fifty dollars for that experience." Many a subaltern of the Guards has had the same adventure, and possibly did not relish it with the same fervour as his American cousin. It may perhaps be of interest to this American officer to learn that the last previous American prisoner at the Tower, of whom there is a record, was "Edward Grove, late of Hampton, New England," who was committed to the Tower on June 6th, 1683, "for levying war against the King," and was ordered "to be confined during His Majesty's pleasure. There is no record to show when the Ravens at the Tower became one of its historic features, but according to tradition it is a matter of considerable antiquity. One of the Yeomen Warders has charge of the Ravens, and there is a grant for their feed twice a day. They each have names, and an attestation card like a soldier, on which is entered the usual particulars. Thus one is named James Crow, and under the heading "profession appears the laconic description "thief." One of the Ravens recently became so attached to the officers of the regiment in garrison, that when they in their turn went to the Great War, he disappeared; whether to fight the 1 Tower of London, by Richard Davey, p. 302 footnote. Germans, or because he could not bear to part with his friends has not been ascertained. To a large proportion of those who visit the Tower the human touch given by the Yeomen Warders, these old warriors, dressed much as their ancestors were in the days of Henry VIII, adds greatly to the historic realism. of the scene. Like men received Queen Anne Boleyn and the Duke of Monmouth; Yeomen Warders such as these guarded Sir Walter Raleigh and the Seven Bishops; their forbears marched before the Duke of Somerset and the Earl of Essex on their way to the fatal block. But looking at these men in happier days, visions of dungeons, the rack, and the scaffold disappear, and instead upon them shines the honest light of soldiers who have fought and bled for their King and country on many a battlefield in many a land, and through the reigns of three monarchs of the Empire. |