"There you behold the Tower of London," said Winwike, pointing downwards.
"And there I read the history of England," said Renard.

"If it is written in those towers, it is a dark and bloody history," replied the
warder; and yet your worship says truly. The building on which we stand,
and those around us, are the best chronicles of our country. I can recount to
your worship their foundation, and the chief events that have happened within
them, if you are disposed to listen to me."-Ainsworth's Tower of London.

J'LONDON:

PRINTED BY J. WHEELER, BERMONDSEY STREET;

SOLD BY T. HODGSON, ARMORY TICKET OFFICE.
PRICE SIXPENCE-1844.

1953.Jan 8
hist of

Francis Part men, LLB

7 Boston

HISTORY, ETC.

OF THE

TOWER OF LONDON.

THERE is not, in this country, a building so replete with historical associations as the TOWER OF LONDON. Its early character as a palace, a prison, and a fortress, immediately connected with the metropolis, has rendered an acquaintance with its annals indispensable to a knowledge of the history of our great nationannals which frequently supply, in their detail, those secret springs of political action, in the absence of which, the historian too frequently substitutes fancy for truth, and consequently produces, in the result of his labours, a mere tale founded on facts.

The opinions of antiquaries have been somewhat divided as to the origin of the Tower of London: by some it is supposed to have been erected by Julius Cæsar; but the majority have attributed the undertaking to William the Conqueror. The former conjecture was strengthened by a discovery made in 1777: it appears, that while employed in digging the foundations of a new office for the Board of Ordnance, the workmen at a considerable depth, came to some foundations of ancient buildings, below which were found three gold coins and a silver ingot: one of the coins was of the time of the emperor Honorius; the others of Arcadius, his brother, who reigned over the Eastern, as Honorius did over the Western Empire. The ingot was in the form of a double wedge, four inches long, weighing 10 oz. 8 gr. troy, and on the centre was impressed EX. OFFIC. HONORII. But the short time that the Roman conqueror remained in Britain, together with his total silence upon the subject of any such work on his part, are circumstances which have been deemed sufficiently strong to throw considerable doubt upon the Roman origin of these poetically-styled "Towers of Julius:" indeed, antiquarians have become nearly unanimous in ascribing the foundation of this citadel to the policy of the bold Norman.

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It is, however, somewhat remarkable, that the earliest describer of the Tower, Fitz-Stephen, who lived in the twelfth century, has not ventured to suggest who laid its foundations: "London (says this ancient chronicler) hath on the east part, a Tower