A Short History of the Tower of London (Electronic book text)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 1HISTORY, 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 nation annals 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 textit{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 Caesar; 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. 8gr. 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 una...