London Part 4: Tower of London Parte Deux

That is the extent of my knowledge of French. Well not entirely true I could find the nearest restroom and such if need be, and that would be the extent of my French. Luckily I speak Spanish, so I could get by okay in a French speaking area.

This is the final installment of my Tower of London posts. As I have said before it is a HUGE location and is best known for its bloody past and its ghosts (if you believe in that sort of thing). There is one thing I loved about the location is that they have actors who reenact scenes that give light into the ToL's past. There was one which was an argument between a constable and a coin-maker, from what I recall from memory they used speech that is best associated with Middle English but wasn't pure Middle English. I am sure this is to ensure that the public understands them. For my readers who are unaware of Middle English, the best example I can give is Shakespeare for the usage of thou and thy and the suffix -est for verbs. 

Moving on to the best part: the pictures!

The White Tower- I mentioned this in the last post. It was the most fortified portion of the castle and is where the King lived. It contains the Royal Armoury, which you can see the armour of past knights and Kings.

Armour of King Henry VIII. I think he was overcompensating for something. Hmmmm

Yes that's a dragon.

Some were imprisoned in this tower, those imprisoned made use of their time by carving into the stone walls. There was even a prisoner who wrote a book that was published in the 1600's. One was imprisoned because he was thought to be a sorcerer, he made use of his time by  carving a astronomical clock that can be seen below.

Hugh Draper of Bristol who was thought to be a sorcerer carved this clock into the wall of his cell.

A diagram that showed the Tower of London during the time of the Peasant's Revolt in 1381.

Another tower that held prisoners during the 16th-17th centuries but its original use was as a guards tower.

The carving within the Broad Arrow Tower that was by a Catholic priest.

The famous Bloody tower. This where the 'little princes' were murdered. I remember watching an episode on the Discovery Channel as a child that spoke of these 2 princes and how they had recovered their bones. This is the reason why it is called the Bloody Tower because they are believed to have been murdered in this tower by their uncle. It was also used for imprisonment of other folks.

 Well that concludes this portion of the Tower of London. I would love to go back and explore some more!