London: Tower of London

We got a late start on the Tower of London. After a very long London cab ride, owing to traffic, we entered, tickets in hand, to admire the dry moat surrounding this fortress/castle/amoury/prison. Soon enough our yeoman warder (aka “Beefeater”) arrived to lead our large group around and tell us a few jokes. Australians, Canadians and Americans were singled out; even a few folks from Pennsylvania (on account of William Penn being held here during the day).

Our warder had a spiffy uniform (NOT to be confused with a “costume”) and a loud voice. He’s been leading tourists around for 22 years, following retirement as a noncommissioned officer in the British armed forces. He lives on the grounds with his family, which is equipped with a doctor, chaplain, and pub. I presume his apartment comes with the job, which sounds like a deal to me. (London is not a cheap place to live.) While I later learned relatively few prisoners were executed on the grounds, up the hill from the Tower was a big public execution site, where thousands gathered to witness beheadings of traitors and others who displeased the monarch of the day. Once the head was off, the executioner held it aloft for the cheering crowd, then it was impaled on a spear and displayed to the public whilst ravens pecked out the eyes. (Our warder told us this with some relish.) Queens had the privilege of being beheaded within the grounds, away from the jeering crowds. This included several of King Henry the VIII’s wives.

Within the tower grounds are several museums. Let’s start with the Crown Jewels. No picture taking in this exhibit, so I’ll throw some in from the Internet.

Here you have the world’s most ginormous diamond, The Cullinan (3,106 carats), which was cut into nine separate huge diamonds. One is now included in King Charles’ sceptre, plus some equally massive rubies and sapphires. And oh, some crowns. You pass by the crowns on a conveyor belt, lest you should want to linger.

And here’s an object most would not expect, a three-foot wide, 546 lb. solid gold punch bowl that can hold 450 bottles of wine. Queen Victoria used it for banquets.

Next to the Crown Jewels exhibit is the Fusiliers’ Museum. These were the guards of the Tower, a regiment formed in 1685 by order of King James II. Here I discovered that David Ben Gurion served as a Fusillier in the Jewish Division before founding the nation of Israel. This is something I did not know.

Next up was the White Tower. When completed in 1100, it was the tallest tower in London. Built by William the Conqueror, it was both garrison, prison, munitions storage, and palace. Now it is given up to one of the oldest museum exhibits in the world, a display of royal armor.

Here you can see Henry VIII’s armor as a youth, and his famous armor as an older fat man, with its prominent cod piece. You can see the royal toilets on the top floor, called “garderobe”, part of the palace for earlier kings.

Here too you will see an accounts ledger that is a meter high, listing inventory and tax accounts and such from 1675 to 1679. It was discovered in storage in 1914, all 914 pages.