Keep Your Head About You, Lady

“Don’t lose your head, lady!” was advice Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, wished she had had an opportunity to follow. On 19 May 1536 at 8 o'clock in the morning she entered the eternal and history books, becoming the first publicly executed English queen. Anne, seen as an interloper who replaced Henry’s first and popular wife, Katharine of Aragon, was suitably despised by contemporary accounts. Nor was she much of a “head turner.” Per an account of the Venetian ambassador, he remarked that she is “not one of the handsomest women in the world. She is of middling stature, with a swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised…” Four years later, he could add, headless.

On that fateful May morning, Anne spoke “Good Christian people, I am come hither to die…” She shared a few additional parting thoughts, was then blindfolded, knelt at the block and repeated several times, “To Jesus Christ I commend my soul; Lord Jesus receive my soul” until a swing of the executioner’s blade brought silence to the Tower Green inside the Tower of London.

We stood before the Tower Green as our Yeoman Warden recounted this and other beheadings that took place on the green directly behind him. The Yeoman Wardens live at the Tower and provide the tour as a service to their visitors.

It is impossible not to be struck by the rich and deep history of the grounds of the Tower of London. Traces of the fortress wall built by Claudius, the Roman Emperor, in the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries are visible on the Tower grounds.

The building of the Tower moved into the “modern” era when William the Conqueror successfully invaded and conquered England in 1066 at Hastings. He decided he needed a stronghold to keep the unruly citizens of London in line. William added smaller towers, extra buildings, walls and walkways. The original building was gradually transformed into a splendid castle, fortress, prison and eventually a tourist attraction.

The White Tower houses the Crown Jewels, which includes crowns and other regalia worn, now ceremoniously, by royalty. Bloody Tower is where many famous and infamous traitors of the realm were imprisoned, or “conveniently detained” as another way of describing this imprisonment.

Sir Walter Raleigh, a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, spent thirteen years with his wife and children in this tower. Furniture is displayed as it might have been in his time. Raleigh organized expeditions to the new world, popularized tobacco, but his scalawag ways with one of the Queen’s hand maidens netted him his new accommodations. Freed by Queen Elizabeth, Raleigh was re-imprisoned and beheaded by Elizabeth’s successor. Some sources say on the day he was beheaded Raleigh was granted a last smoke of tobacco, establishing the tradition of giving a prisoner a last cigarette before execution.

Along with our Yeomen Warders, the Tower is inhabited by seven ravens, their wings clipped, so they can't fly away. A superstition from the time of Charles II claims that when there are no longer ravens in the Tower, both the White Tower and the kingdom will fall.