Ghosts of the Tower of London

Lift thine head,

If thou hast yet the gut and will,

Ere Black Cap lifts it for you,

Leaving thy corpse to rest as still

As all the crowd around.

Lift thine head and look aloft for strength,

Before thy blood alone doth smudge the axe’s length.

Immediately outside the Tower of London stands Tower Hill. From that eminence many men – women too – looked their last on the Tower, on London, on life itself. For it was on Tower Hill that scores of victims met death, death that came by the flashing axe, the burning logs, the taut rope. Down through the centuries the names reproach history for the manner in which death was meted out: John Goose, a Lollard, burnt in 1475; four church robbers hanged in 1480, as was Lady Pargitor’s manservant for coin clipping in 1538; John Smith, Groom of King Edward’s Stirrup, beheaded for treason in 1483, together with William Collingbourne, Sheriff of Wiltshire, hanged, drawn and quartered for composing a verse derogatory to Richard III. Death distinguished not between the highest and the lowest; from Don Pantaleon Sa, brother to the Portuguese Ambassador, beheaded for murder 1654, down to Mary Roberts, Charlotte Gardner and a one-armed soldier, William MacDonald, hanged for rioting in 1780. Many eminent names grace the lists, lords, dukes, archbishops, most of them having been led from their prison cells in the Tower of London by the yeoman warders who handed them over (against a receipt!) to the Sheriff of London and his men at the Tower Gates. Following beheading, the head was spiked on London Bridge as an awful example to all, the body being returned to the Tower for burial within or near the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula.

It is hardly surprising then that such suffering should manifest itself to those whose duties require them to be near the main gates. There the victims first faced the waiting crowds, the surging multitude of avid spectators; there the grim procession started, to end on the scaffold on the Hill.

And so it was that one night in World War II a sentry patrolling the Tower entrance was suddenly shocked into bloodchilling awareness of figures trooping down the Hill towards him. Clad in quaint uniforms, they slowly advanced. In their midst they bore a rough stretcher. And on the stretcher sprawled a headless body – whilst between arm and torso lay the severed head! Nearer and nearer the grim cortege approached–to fade into nothingness when barely yards away.

The sentry’s detailed report was investigated by the authorities with great thoroughness. It was discovered that the uniforms worn by the ghostly figures tallied with those issued to the Sheriff’s Men in the Middle Ages, men whose job it was to bring the corpse back for burial; the head being conveyed to London Bridge by river from Tower Steps, the quickest and most customary route. All the reported facts agreed with historical detail – so who are we to doubt it?