My day in the Tower

Sunday, as promised, I went back into London. Caroline and I had concocted this wildly elaborate and busy scheme of things to do. As it happened, we accomplished precisely two. BUT WHAT A TWO TO GET DONE.

She hadn't been into London yet, so of course we stopped at the British Museum for two hours. Like I'm complaining! I only realized then that I'd completely missed the Rome wing and a ton of gorgeous Grecian pottery. We saw the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon, and went up to said Rome wing, where we made the acquaintances of a couple of the Caesars, namely Augustus, Claudius, and my favorite creeper Livia:


If Livia means little or nothing to you, I will lend you the BBC series "I, Claudius." AS LONG AS I GET IT BACK.

We also got to the exhibit of clocks and watches. Holy crap. Some of those clocks are simply exquisite. The detail that went into them is just staggering. Even the watches - ESPECIALLY the watches, in fact. The detail goes into both the watch itself and the watch case. It was pretty depressing to see, at the back of the room as part of the exhibit, a couple modern clocks. SO UGLY. I wanted to stick them under a lightbulb in a dark room and start interrogating them as to their presence amid all this incredibly crafted beauty. "Plastic? Plastic? Plastic has no place here, you 80s fool! Unless you have gold filigree, raus schnell!"

ANYWAY. You will be pleased to know that I didn't do that. I still retain some sense and sanity.

Instead, we hopped the Underground to... THE TOWER OF LONDON!!! Which is AMAZING. Absolutely incredible. The best part is, yes, it's wildly tourist. BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER. The Tower itself, the building, is so much more important and fascinating than any tchotchkes they can throw at you.

Don't believe me? Take a look:



Quick brief on the Tower: It starts with the central square Norman building, called the White Tower because Henry III (great builder, shitty king - Simon de Montfort FOREVER!) had it whitewashed when he built the towers around it in the late 1200s. For a while, kings kept adding to it, building enclosures, sticking towers on the enclosures. It's incredible - the complex is huge, but incredibly easy to get around. (Kind of like the Underground, but even more wonderful.)

Caroline and I opted not to go on one of the Yeoman Warder tours, and instead to poke around on our own. Which turned out to be an excellent choice. That way we actually got to SEE things, instead of being trapped in a horde of sweaty tourists. Things like, say, Tower Green:


That's the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the background. Everyone is buried there. Everyone. They had a plaque up on the inside wall; it took my breath away, reading it. More, Fisher, Cromwell, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Jane Grey, Essex, Northumberland. It was incredible. The part that really left me speechless was when one of the Yeoman Warders pointed out the altar (this is an ancient picture, but they don't allow photos in the chapel, so this is the best I could do):



Under the altar, at the far end, are buried the three queens. Anne, at the left end, then Catherine and Jane. I couldn't speak. I was glad that a whole group had gathered around, so I didn't have to say anything and could just stare.

We also saw Traitor's Gate:


Yes, the water is green. That's not just the picture. It's legitimately green. I so wanted to go sit on the steps and refuse to budge, but they were fenced off.

We got to the Bloody Tower as well, and saw Walter Raleigh's room and the Princes' cell. That was pretty cute - they presented the story of the Princes as a detective investigation, and at the end you got to cast your vote for whether Richard III had them killed, Henry VII had them killed, or they just disappeared (which is a total BS cop-out and which, of course, had the second-most votes. WIMPS! They died, okay? Deal!). I voted for Henry (Josephine Tey, I'm a convert!). He had 9953 votes, including mine. Richard had over ten thousand eight hundred. GROAN. Shakespeare, your smear job is excellent.

And we saw the Crown Jewels. And OH MY GOD. So incredibly beautiful. The gems in those crowns - beyond belief. I also never appreciated how many crowns there are. There's St. Edward's Crown, worn only at the moment of coronation.


That's the Imperial State Crown, set with St. Edward's sapphire, the Black Prince's ruby, and the Second Star of Africa (#2 largest diamond of perfect clarity in the world - #1 is in the Scepter of the Cross). The Queen wears that when she needs the most impressive non-coronation-only crown in the country - for instance, to open Parliament, or for huge ceremonial occasions. (AFTER the coronation, that's the crown the sovereign wears outside Westminster to greet the adoring public.) However, the regalia never leaves the country - so when George V visited India, they had to make him a completely new crown for that trip. It's never been used since.

That's Queen Victoria's tiny little diamond crown, made for her to wear with her widow's veil after Albert died. (Side note: thanks to Cromwell, all the regalia is post-Restoration. So we have no crowns except for Victoria's from any queen regnant that still have their jewels. Both Mary II and Mary of Modena were crowned along with William and James, respectively, but it was a rush job and the jewels were hired. It just irks me that their crowns are now set with fake gems. And yet the one-use-only Imperial Crown of India still has all ITS jewels...)

There is the Queen Mother's crown, though. Set with the Koh-i-Noor diamond. (It's the big one in the middle.)

They would not allow any photos at all in the Jewel House. It was incredible. Someone would sneak out a camera, and the Yeoman Warders were on him or her like a ton of bricks. "SIR! PUT AWAY THAT CAMERA! NO PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED!" I didn't even try.

The display was rather brilliant. They have the crowns and scepters mounted in cases, with a moving walkway on either side. You get on the walkway, and as you go by, the lights in the cases and your own motion make every single diamond shoot light out in every direction. It's breathtaking. Caroline and I went on the walkways three times, looping around and around.

I wished I'd checked beforehand which towers Elizabeth and Gruffydd ap Llewellyn were held in - it struck me when we were there that I really wanted to visit those. But it was still amazing. And this way, if I get to go back, I'll know what I want to look for!