THE TOWER FROM WITHIN I THE TOWER OF LONDON The cradle of the British race- -The oldest palace and fortress in T HE Tower of London is the cradle of the English race. There were Saxons and Scots, Danes and Norsemen, Celts and Cymbrians before, but when William the Conqueror, nearly nine hundred years ago, built the Tower there came into being the great nation, which has since spread its dominion over half the world. As a pillar on the roadside of centuries the Tower is more venerable than any combined palace, fortress, and State prison in Europe. It had stood sentry on the Thames three hundred years before the Doge's Palace shone on the Venetian lagoon, or the Kremlin had reared its minarets over Moscow. The hoary Vatican is a palace of youth beside the ancient Tower. Not till Henry VIII was King of England were laid the foundations of the palace of the Louvre. In the days of Queen Elizabeth the site of Versailles was still a pristine swamp; and the B foundations of the Tuileries were but slowly growing. The Tower was already six hundred years old when the Escorial was built, and yet another century elapsed before Sans Souci stood complete. In Europe the only palace which approaches the Tower in antiquity is a portion of the Burg at Vienna; yet even this fragment of masonry can only claim to have existed in the reign of Henry III of England. As Mecca is to the Mahomedans, so is the Tower of London to the countless millions who speak the English tongue. On the site of an old Roman fortress on the Thames a hasty fortification was first thrown up by the Conqueror, and strongly garrisoned by Normans, both to guard the approaches from the sea and to overawe his new and reluctant subjects; but soon a permanent fortress, named the Tower of London, took its place. The architect and engineer who designed and fashioned this military work was a prelate, Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester; for ministers of the gospel in those days were not only sometimes soldiers, but also leading lights in architecture and the building in stone. This they had learnt in erecting monasteries, and churches and cathedrals, finding by experience that stone was more durable than wood or clay. The Bishop of Rochester was in those days perhaps more famed for weeping than for valour or holiness, but as an architect his memory stands clear to this day in the White Tower. Centuries of storms have beat against it; earthquakes have striven to shake it; shot and shell have been hurled against it; twice have attempts been made to blow it up; the German high-explosive bombs have dropped around it. Yet Gundulph's masterpiece stands to-day unshaken and undismayed; just as it stood when William the Conqueror first reigned within its halls. The massive walls are fifteen feet thick and ninety feet high; the foundations go to unknown depths, and on the four corners stand four turrets each different from the other. When first it was built the stone from Caen was new and white, and White became its name, and this appearance was maintained artificially for many centuries. It remained for a later age to discontinue this periodical and costly white-washing; nor does it lose aught from this economy, for to the eyes of to-day old and weather-worn grey stones seem more in keeping with an ancient fortress than a new and white veneer. The White Tower stands as has been said on the site of a still older fortress built by Julius Cæsar, and there was long confusion between the two. Both the Emperor and the Conqueror, with the military eye, chose the same spot, the one best calculated to serve the double problem each had to face, security by sea and land. In proof thereof a portion of the Roman wall may still be seen close to the south-east corner of the White Tower. As king succeeded king they built walls and smaller towers round the central keep, and dug a deep and broad moat. The chiefest of these royal architects was Henry III, and he it was who practically completed the fortress in the form it now stands. It was to his architectural genius amongst other works that we owe the Traitors' Gate, with St. Thomas' Tower standing over it; a span of sixty feet without a keystone. To William Longchamp, another bishop, under the orders of Richard Cœur de Lion, is attributed such finishing touches as the deepening and widening of the moat; whilst Edward I, on his return from a crusade to the Holy Land, completed the outer defences. The fortress is roughly square with two lines of defensive walls, running round a central keep. The central keep is the White Tower, and the defensive perimetres are known as the Inner and Outer Ballium Walls. On these walls at intervals are placed small Towers as strong points and to give flank defence. How carefully this is arranged may be gathered from the ancient arrow slits, which enabled the archers to command all approaches. Round the outer ballium wall is King Richard's broad moat. The area covered by the fortress is 12 acres and 5 rods, and the outside circumference, including the |