The Tower of London Today

Introduction to the Tower of London

Para1The Tower of London is an iconic series of buildings and structures begun in the Middle Ages but that remain an important keystone of London’s history. It attracts more than three million people a year as a tourist attraction. The Tower was used by English royals as their home, as a state prison, and as a place to house the Crown Jewels. Many famous and infamous individuals in Britain’s history have been imprisoned there, including Guy Fawkes and Anne Boleyn. In early modern London, the Tower represented the main military installation in the city, as well as serving as a palace.
Para2The central castle with four turrets is known as the White Tower, built by William I over a twenty-year period starting in 1070. By 1300, the central castle was surrounded by a double set of curtain walls studded with numerous smaller towers at strategic points.
Para3This fortress still stands today, although it is no longer a prison. The last prisoner of the Tower to be executed there was German spy Josef Jakobs in 1941, and the very last prisoner was Nazi leader, Rudolph Hess, held in the same year.

The Buildings

Para4Many buildings comprise the structure called The Tower of London. Instead of calling this conglomeration The White Tower, The Salt Tower, The Cradle Tower, and Tower Hill, most people simply call it The Tower.
Para5Most of the structures are open to the public, but a select few residents actually live in certain sections, which exclude tourists. This includes the Queen’s House. This area does not house the queen or any other member of the royal family, but rather is the official residence of the Constable of the Tower of London, who is a retired general or field marshall appointed into what is now a ceremonial position. While this military officer commands the Yeoman Warders who defend and work at the Tower, the Constable also is a trustee of the Historic Royal Palaces organization. Persons hold this ceremonial rank for a period of five years.

The Crown Jewels

Para6Today, the Tower of London is used to both house and display the Crown Jewels and be a museum dedicated to the fortress’s history. The Crown Jewels have been on display at the Tower since the 1600s. The main pieces in the Tower’s collection are the Coronation Regalia. These pieces are crowns, swords, garb, and other objects that are used in the coronation of British royalty. Among the pieces in the collection are St. Edward’s Crown, the Sovereign’s Orb and the Jeweled Sword of Offering.
Para7The current St. Edward’s Crown was created for the coronation of Charles II in 1660, when the monarchy was restored after the English Civil Wars. It has been used for the coronation of English royalty since the 17th century, although a previous crown of the same name was used from 1220 to 1626. The entire headpiece weighs 2.23 kilograms, about five pounds. The jewels include some of the largest diamonds in the world, as well as a host of other precious and semi-precious stones. Another memorable piece of the Crown Jewels is the Sovereign’s Orb, a large orb of gold which symbolizes the Christian world and is held in the hand of the person being coronated. When the pieces are not being used for the coronation ceremony, they are on heavily secured display in the Tower.

A Stage and Museum

Para8While it was once a place for prisoners, now The Tower is a living musuem and a stage for tourists to experience history. Since the structure also acts as its own museum, it shows tourists the Tower’s history and legacy with numerous museum displays on arms and armour, curated displays in the medieval palace, a walking tour across some of the battlements, and the chance to attend services in the Church of England chapel. Among the people posted in the grounds are actors, tour guides, and soldiers, all supported by a large staff of service workers. Actors often portray the most infamous prisoners there, including Guy Fawkes and Anne Boleyn. The soldiers stationed at the Tower officially protect not only the Tower, but the Queen.

Beefeaters

Para9Among the soldiers at the Tower is a special class, comprised of those who served at least 22 years in the British Armed Forces and earned both the Long Service and Good Conduct medals. These soldiers are affectionately nicknamed Beefeaters. They are officially titled Yeoman Warders, but their nickname may have come from their position in the Royal Bodyguard, which permitted them to eat as much beef as they wanted from the king's table. Regardless the name’s origin, their rank and appearance remains iconic to the Tower as a tourist destination. They wear dark navy-blue uniforms with bright red embellishment and symbols, as well as a high-crowned hat. These guards not only keep the peace but are also responsible for entertaining those that visit, offering tours, and posing for pictures.

Key Print Sources

Jones, Nigel. Tower: An Epic History of The Tower of London. St. Martins Griffin, 2013.
Porter, Stephen. Tower of London - The Biography. Amberley Publishing, 2015.

Key Online Sources

The Crown Jewels. Historic Royal Palaces, Tower of London, 2018, https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/the-crown-jewels/. Accessed 18 Sep. 2018.
The Story of the Tower of London. Historic Royal Palaces, Tower of London. https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/the-story-of-the-tower-of-london/#gs.qoz2gb. Accessed 18 Sep. 2018.
Yeoman Warder Tours. Historic Royal Palaces, Tower of London, 2018, https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/whats-on/yeoman-warder-tours/. Accessed 18 Sep. 2018.

Prosopography

Elise Curtis

Elise Curtis was an Honors student at Utah Valley University.

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.

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 Today
Type of text Critical
Publisher University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series Early Modern England Encyclopedia
Source
By Elise Curtis, 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.