Free Ghosts of the Tower of London by Geoff Abbott Page B

found.
    Could it really have been the death cries of the hideously mutilated countess?

The Beauchamp Tower
    Heaven send us open weather,
    For if I stay thus so shut up,
    With no walk upon the battlements,
    Then shall I lose my looks, my wits,
    And aught else of value
    That the good Lord gave me.
    ‘Tis not much when I take air and exercise.
    The guards and women there all crowd the way.
    But I can stretch both foot and eye,
    And see to where the river’s sheen
    Doth mock the sky.
    So I do say….
    Heaven send us open weather,
    That God and I and London Town
    May stand together.

    The Beauchamp Tower
     

    On the west side of Tower Green, overlooking the scaffold site, stands the Beauchamp Tower. Because of its proximity to the Lieutenant’s Lodgings it became one of the more ‘popular’ prison towers, favouring those of noble birth and high estate. Not that much comfort was provided: a fire, some candles, rushes spread on the floor, these did little to compensate for the open arrow slits and cold, thick walls.
    Originally the prison room and the living quarters of its guardian, the yeoman warder, on the top floor, could only be reached via the battlements from the Bell Tower, the latter being integral with the Lieutenant’s Lodgings (now the Queen’s House). The present doorway was a later addition; in earlier times such an aperture would have weakened the defences, and in any case it would not have been seemly for prisoners to have been conducted through the Inner Ward, the precincts of the nobles and the Royal Family. The lower chambers, then, were dungeons, cramped and gloomy cells secured by heavy doors, approached by spiral stairs from above.
    Over the centuries the State Prison Room, on the first floor, housed many prisoners. In them the flame of hope burned bright, the hope that a change of monarch, a change of policy, could bring about their release. For a great number of them, however, it was not to be; after years of captivity they were led out, to face the baying mob, the black-clad axeman. Some did survive, to have titles and estates bestowed on them anew. A grim gamble, with Fate tossing the dice!

    Elizabeth’s Walk
    During their imprisonment time hung heavy. Many of these were men of breeding and of letters, skilled in Latin, versed in the Scriptures. And there, locked away in the great fortress, having ceased to exist so far as the outside world was concerned, they carved inscriptions on the walls. Proud family crests, pitiful pleas of innocence, religious quotations, even wry witticisms adorn the stonework, mute messages from those who lived from day to day under the shadow of violent execution.
    The instrument they used for inscribing was in all probability the dagger. Forks were not invented until the seventeenth century; before that men carried daggers with which to cut their food and convey it to their mouths. It was of little use in an escape bid. The century of the hostage is the twentieth century; when almost any sacrifice is made to save a human life. But in the Middle Ages life was cheap and a prisoner who, holding his warder hostage and demanding freedom, would have been told to go ahead – the Lieutenant had many more warders with which to replace the one stabbed! And should the prisoner employ his dagger to commit suicide, it would simply save the axeman a job.
    Among those who left their marks in the stone is Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel. A devout Catholic, he was imprisoned in 1585 accused of aiding the Jesuits and, later, of praying for the success of the Spanish Armada in its attempted invasion of these islands. Queen Elizabeth spared his life, even offering him his freedom if he would forsake his religion. He refused. For ten years he was held prisoner, then died, in his fortieth year, in the Beauchamp Tower.
    One of the more famous occupants of the State Prison Room was Lord Guildford Dudley, son of the Duke of Northumberland. The duke, adviser to the ailing King Edward VI,