Page:The American fugitive in Europe.djvu/136

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PLACES AND PEOPLE ABROAD.

gates, the innermost one being pointed out as the "Water, or Traitors' Gate," so called from the fact that it opened to the river, and through it the criminals were usually brought to the prison within. But this passage is now closed up. We visited the various apartments in the old building. The room in the Bloody Tower where the infant princes were put to death by the command of their uncle, Richard III., also the recess behind the gate where the bones of the young princes were concealed, were shown to us. The warden of the prison, who showed us through, seemed to have little or no veneration for Henry VIII.; for he often cracked a joke or told a story at the expense of the murderer of Anne Boleyn. The old man wiped the tear from his eye as he pointed out the grave of Lady Jane Grey. This was doubtless one of the best as well as most innocent of those who lost their lives in the Tower; young, virtuous and handsome, she became a victim to the ambition of her own and her husband's relations. I tried to count the names on the wall in "Beauchamp's Tower," but they were too numerous. Anne Boleyn was imprisoned here. The room in the "Brick Tower" where Lady Jane Grey was imprisoned was pointed out as a place of interest. We were next shown into the "White Tower." We passed through a long room filled with many things having a warlike appearance; and among them a number of equestrian figures, as large as life, and clothed in armor and trappings of the various reigns from Edward I. to James II., or from 1272 to 1685.