The Tower of London

History

Para1The Tower of London is known for its long history as a palace, fortress, and site of royal intrigue. Construction on the Tower had begun by the 1070s, after the Norman King William the Conqueror invaded from France and took control of the English crown at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The Tower was built as one of three fortresses intended to secure the city and to act as a display of Norman power. Construction of the Tower, including lavish living quarters, prisons, and further defensive fortifications, continued until about 1350. Throughout its time, the Tower has been used as a royal residence, a prison, the location of the royal mint, a storehouse for treasure and munitions, and a site for many other important happenings.
Para2The Tower’s construction is defined by its many protective layers, including thick walls and a moat. In its original form, the Tower’s most prominent feature was the White Tower, named after Henry III had the central, four-turreted castle keep painted white. As time went on, features such as additional towers, a curtain wall, chapels, and living quarters were added to the Tower. Inside the walls of the Tower lie a medieval castle, living quarters for the Tower’s live-in guards (called the Yeoman Warders),past residences for the courtiers and members of the royal family, munitions offices, a graveyard, a chapel, the historic location of the royal mint until the nineteenth century, and a major tourist attraction in the display of the Crown Jewels.

A Royal Residence

Para3The Tower, while symbolizing the power of the English monarchy with its intimidating presence on the London skyline, was seldom used as a royal residence, although new monarchs typically spent the night before their coronation there. The royal family would most often find themselves living there during times of international or internal political turmoil. Many of its improved fortifications were made by kings seeking to protect themselves from threats to the Crown. While the Tower remains an official royal residence, the reign of Henry VIII saw the end of the royal family’s use of the Tower as consistent housing. The Tower’s primary use transitioned in the later Tudor period to a state prison for high profile prisoners.

Prisoners at the Tower

Para4The Tower is perhaps most famously known for the gory aspects of its history. It was used as a prison for people accused of treason or heresy. Famous prisoners held at the Tower include Sir Thomas More, Lady Jane Grey, and two of Henry VIII’s wives. Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. The Tower has been utilized as a prison as recently as World War II, when German prisoners such as Josef Jakobs and Rudolf Hess were kept, and, in the case of Jakobs, executed there.

Executions and Murders in the Tower

Para5Contrary to popular belief, only a few executions were performed within the walls of the Tower. Rather, most prisoners were brought to nearby Tower Hill, where they were publicly executed by a headsman using an axe. Their heads were mounted on spikes at the Tower or on nearby London Bridge (which was the main bridge into the City prior to the 18th century; the current Tower Bridge was not opend until 1894). The headless corpses of most executed prisoners were given a pauper’s grave. Throughout its history, only ten recorded executions have been performed within the actual walls of the fortress. Two of these prisoners included the wives of King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, along with Lady Jane Grey, who reigned as Queen for only nine days in 1553.
Para6Historians are not certain, but it is generally believed that Henry VI was murdered in the chapel in Wakefield Tower, part of the medieval palace complex closest to the river. Most historians believe that Richard III, seeking to maintain his possession of the throne, had the two young sons of Edward IV imprisoned and murdered at the Tower, although it cannot be proven and has given rise to vocal defenses of Richard III. However, the remains of two boys were discovered hidden in a stairwell at the White Tower in 1674, and forensic testing in 1933 further confirmed the theory that these were the remains of the two young princes. Rumors regarding the fate of the princes in the Tower contributed to Richard’s villainous reputation, which Shakespeare enhanced in his 1595 play. Certainly, a part of modern audiences’ fascination with the Tower is tied to these incidents of mysterious royal intrigue.

Key Print Sources

Cannon, John, and Robert Crowcroft. Tower of London (White Tower). A Dictionary of British History, 3 ed., Oxford UP, 2015.
Dolman, Brett. Tour 3: Imprisoned at the Tower. Experience the Tower of London: Souvenir Guidebook, Historic Royal Palaces, 2013, pp. 33–41.
Holmes, Susan. History. Experience the Tower of London: Souvenir Guidebook, Historic Royal Palaces, 2013, p. 6–13.

Key Online Sources

Best, Michael. The Tower. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/history/crime%20and%20the%20law/punishment.html. Accessed 12 Sep. 2018.
The Story of the Tower of London: Mighty Fortress. Royal Palace. Infamous Prison. Historic Royal Palaces, https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/the-story-of-the-tower-of-london/. Accessed 20 May 2023.
Tower of London. United Nations World Heritage Convention. UNESCO, 2019. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/488.

Prosopography

Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

Katelyn Morrow

Katelyn Morrow was an Honors student at Utah Valley University.

Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

University of Victoria (UVIC1)

https://www.uvic.ca/

Metadata

Authority title The Tower of London
Type of text Critical
Publisher University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series Early Modern England Encyclopedia
Source
By Katelynn Morrow, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions
Editorial declaration This document uses Canadian English spelling
Edition Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a
Sponsor(s)

Early Modern England Encyclopedia

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
Encoding description Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
Document status published, peer-reviewed
Funder(s) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Mitacs Globalink Research Internship
Utah Valley University
License/availability
Unless otherwise noted, intellectual copyright in EMEE Anthology pages is held by Kate McPherson on behalf of the contributors. Copyright on the TEI-XML markup is held by the University of Victoria on behalf of the LEMDO Team. The content and TEI-XML markup in this file are licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. This file is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and /or data; (2) this availability statement must remain in the file; (3) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (4) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO. Neither the content nor the code in this file is licensed for training large language models (LLMs), ingestion into an LLM, or any use in any artificial intelligence applications; such uses are considered to be commercial uses and are strictly prohibited.