Ghosts of the Tower of London

Here in the midmost of a modern day,

When clarity of thought and deed hold sway,

What parcel of fancies with the thread undone

Can set man’s dignity off at the run,

Wailing and sobbing as a babe at the knee,

To shudder at sights none other can see.

At the north-east corner of the inner wall stands the Martin Tower, a tower of many ghostly legends. At the turn of the century it was reported that a figure in white walked the upper room, to the great alarm of the yeoman warders - and even in these times there are some workmen who are reluctant to work inside it, such is its eerie atmosphere. George Boleyn, Anne Boleyn’s brother, was imprisoned in the Martin Tower, later being hanged, drawn and quartered on the vengeful instructions of King Henry VIII.

Yet one man whose spirit is reputed to linger around this tower is one who was acquitted and released! The intrigue of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 involved many names. A few are well known, such as Guy Fawkes, Ambrose Rookwood, Father Gerard; many are less known, Winter, Wright, Kay. One such latter was Thomas Percy, an active conspirator in the Plot, a man related to Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland. Upon the discovery of the plot, charges were laid against the earl, alleging his complicity. And so this elderly and learned gentleman was confined in the Martin Tower for no less than sixteen years. That his confinement was not particularly arduous is evidenced by the fact that his family lived with him for some of that time, and that he formed a scientific and literary circle within the Tower of London, other erudite prisoners, among them Sir Walter Raleigh, visiting the Martin Tower to debate the finer points of the times with the ‘Wizard Earl’ as he was known.

The Earl was subsequently released in 1620 after paying a £30,000 fine, truly a fortune in those days. Whilst confined he took his exercise on ‘Northumberland’s Walk’, the battlements each side of the Martin Tower. Although he suffered neither torture nor sudden death, his ghost was seen, late in the last century, by sentries who, terrified, would only mount guard in pairs. Not only that, but the innocent passer-by has on occasion felt unseen hands push him – or her! - down the steps by the Martin Tower.

Not all happenings end so mildly. Indeed one poor unfortunate snapped beneath the strain of such an experience – and paid with his life. He was a sentry who, in January 1815, was on patrol before the arched doorway of the Martin Tower (then the Jewel House). Midnight was striking when, to his sudden horror, he saw the figure of a huge bear emerge from beneath the door. Desperately he lunged with his bayonet, only to have the weapon pass through the shape and embed itself in the oaken door. His comrades, hearing the commotion, hurried to the spot – to find him stretched unconscious on the ground.

Questioned the next day by the Jewel House Keeper, Mr Edmund Lenthal Swifte, the sentry was ‘trembling and haunted by fear, a man changed beyond recognition’. Within two days he was dead-during which time his bayonet still pierced the ancient timbers of the door he had died guarding.

And such are the quirks of fate that it was Lenthal Swifte himself who was involved in one of the eeriest emanations ever to occur within the fortress. One cold night in October 1817 the Keeper of The Crown Jewels was having supper in the dining room of the Martin Tower. The three doors to the room were closed and heavy curtains shrouded the two windows. His family, consisting of his wife, their son aged seven, and his wife’s sister, sat round the oblong table, his wife facing the fireplace. Two candles illuminated the scene, though doubtless a fire burned bright as well. Mrs Swifte raised a glass of wine and water to her lips, then suddenly exclaimed, ‘Good God! What is that?’ Swifte looked up – to see what appeared to be a glass cylinder about three inches in diameter floating above the table; within it bluish-white fluids swirled and writhed. It hovered then, moving slowly along, passed behind his wife. Immediately she cowered, covering her shoulder with both hands. ‘Oh Christ!’ she shrieked. ‘It has seized me!’ That she felt something was evident, for no mirror faced her, only the fireplace, yet her sister and son saw nothing of the appearance. Mr Swifte, filled with horror, sprang to his feet and hurled his chair at the hovering apparition - to see the tube cross the upper end of the table and disappear in the recess of the opposite window.

Later Mr Swifte, an intelligent and highly responsible official, set down a detailed report of the occurrence. Never once when recounting it during later years did he change a single detail – or deny the terror which imprinted itself on his memory that dark night in the Martin Tower.

Not all visitations in that locality are, however, hostile. South of the Martin Tower and connected to it by Northumberland’s Walk lies the Constable Tower. Once, long ago, the residence of the Constable of the Tower of London, it is now the home of a yeoman warder and his wife.

Over the years since 1973 a ‘presence’ has manifested itself. This spirit has nudged the wife’s arm so determinedly that the pen spluttered sideways across the paper! The occupants of the Constable Tower are immediately aware of its arrival, because it is heralded by a strong ‘horseman’ smell, a compounded odour of leather, of sweating horseflesh, - that of a rider who, having just dismounted after a long hard gallop, strides into his home.

‘He’s here again!’ comments the yeoman warder, and his wife nods agreement. They’re not apprehensive for, far from being hostile, this spirit generates a warm friendliness - a rarity indeed in the Tower of London!