Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
Does anyone here know:
1. Where would a prisoner be kept in the Tower in 1485? The deeper, danker, and wetter the better. We're talking rats and a cell that's flooded with the tide...or is that an impossibility and only a Hollywoodism? Or only available during Tudor times?
2. Where the heck were the royal apartments located in 1485?
3. Where were nice visitor apartments located? (Wakefield? St. Thomas's? Those used to be royal, but that was in Edward III's time? I'm so confused....)
4. Is there any book out there containing diagrams of the Tower and its buildings through the centuries?
Thanks so much for your help.
~Weds
Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
Weds wrote:
"I've looked and looked, but can't find the answer to this; it seems like information on the Tower of London interiors is locked up as tightly as the crown jewels. Anyway...
Does anyone here know:
1. Where would a prisoner be kept in the Tower in 1485? The deeper, danker, and wetter the better. We're talking rats and a cell that's flooded with the tide...or is that an impossibility and only a Hollywoodism? Or only available during Tudor times?
2. Where the heck were the royal apartments located in 1485?
3. Where were nice visitor apartments located? (Wakefield? St. Thomas's? Those used to be royal, but that was in Edward III's time? I'm so confused....)
4. Is there any book out there containing diagrams of the Tower and its buildings through the centuries? "
Marie responds:
You could really do with reading Helen Maurer's 2 pt article. It is about the various bones that were found, and/or claimed to have been found, in the Tower in the 1600s and identified as those of the Princes, but she also gives a lot of information about the Tower itself and how it was used. I believe the article was published first in the Ricardian Register, but it was certainly in the Ricardian, issues 111 & 112. Annette Carson used this article in writing her chapter on the Bones in 'The Maligned King'.
2. The royal palace took up the SE quarter of the Tower and was entered from the Inner Ward by Coldharbour Gate. Helen Maurer shows that the King's apartments at this period were in the Lanthorn Tower.
1. VIP prisoners tended to be held in the old royal apartments in the White Tower. I think the flooding cells would be a bit fantastic because you would want your prisoner housed in the inner ward for security reasons. Might be worth reading up on people held in the Tower in Tudor times to find out about the really nasty cells.
3. Would the visitor be a royal guest? Might make a difference.
There are a few histories of the Tower in print, but the latest one, by Nigel Jones I think, is supposed to be misleading rubbish.
Hope this is of some help.
Marie
Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
On Wednesday, 6 August 2014, 19:50, "wednesday.mac@... []" <> wrote:
I've looked and looked, but can't find the answer to this; it seems like information on the Tower of London interiors is locked up as tightly as the crown jewels. Anyway...
Does anyone here know:
1. Where would a prisoner be kept in the Tower in 1485? The deeper, danker, and wetter the better. We're talking rats and a cell that's flooded with the tide...or is that an impossibility and only a Hollywoodism? Or only available during Tudor times?
2. Where the heck were the royal apartments located in 1485?
3. Where were nice visitor apartments located? (Wakefield? St. Thomas's? Those used to be royal, but that was in Edward III's time? I'm so confused....)
4. Is there any book out there containing diagrams of the Tower and its buildings through the centuries?
Thanks so much for your help.
~Weds
Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
Mary
Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
I was wandering in Waterstones the other day and picked up Weirs new book on EoY..I glanced through the last pages..sure enough..words to the effect EoY was laid to rest not very far from where her brothers, *murdered* by Rlll would be laid to rest. Give Me Strength...Weir has got one of her tours coming soon focusing on Richard. How ironic..I would love to be a fly on the wall. Eileen
Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
I read the Alison Weir book about Elizabeth of York recently. Parts of it were not too bad, especially since not that much is known about the private lives of EofY and HT - certainly an improvement on 'The Princes in the Tower.' She is good at describing what is was like to be a queen at the time, but again E and H and their relationship seemed elusive. Other parts were intensely irritating, especially when her bias towards Richard got in the way. She did a lot of detailed research, but came to some strange and unconvincing conclusions because of it. A lot of the same old tosh and some new thrown in. She is still obsessed with the James Tyrrell confession, and is convinced that EofY's last tour was all to do with finding out about the murder. Worth a read for entertainment though.
Nico
On Thursday, 7 August 2014, 20:59, "eileenbates147@... []" <> wrote:
I know Mary..The same old same old..gets regurgitated so many times it's very tedious now.
I was wandering in Waterstones the other day and picked up Weirs new book on EoY..I glanced through the last pages..sure enough..words to the effect EoY was laid to rest not very far from where her brothers, *murdered* by Rlll would be laid to rest. Give Me Strength...Weir has got one of her tours coming soon focusing on Richard. How ironic..I would love to be a fly on the wall. Eileen
Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
It looks like the Tower is out when it comes to rats in cells, but the Fleet might do for my purposes as it (and The Rules) accommodated both commoner and noble.
I happened across an invaluable doctoral dissertation on the medieval prisons in London, available for download as a link within an article here:
Prisons and Punishments in Late Medieval London - Medievalists.net Prisons and Punishments in Late Medieval London - Me... This thesis begins with an analysis of the purpose of imprisonment, which was not merely custodial and was undoubtedly punitive in the medieval period. Having ... View on www.medievalists.net Preview by Yahoo
It certainly makes clear some of the reasons why Richard wanted to revise some of the laws for commoners, especially when it came to holding someone before their hearing vs. after they were sentenced.
Thanks again for all your help.
~Weds
Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
Mary
Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
“The Devil will quote scripture for her own ends”
From:
[mailto: ]
Sent: 09 August 2014 22:04
To:
Subject: [Richard III Society
Forum] Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
Did you see the post on FB about Weir supporting a Catholic service for Richard? It is a bit late for her to become supportive now.
Mary
Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
Did you see the post on FB about Weir supporting a Catholic service for Richard? It is a bit late for her to become supportive now.
Mary
--
Richard Liveth Yet!
The Tower and the NPG (Was: Prisoner in 1485...}
"Hi Weds, you should watch the Dan Cruickshank programme on royal palaces (don't know whether it's on in the US) where he makes it clear that the Tower was royal appartments and what we today would call government offices until the reign of Henry VIII made it take on a more sinister aspect. It was a working set of offices complete with armoury and menagerie. "So, the King had his state bedroom (if he needed one) in the Tower, he had his chapel there, his Council Chamber there. Every castle (and indeed bishop's palace) had its dungeons and would continue to do so until after the Civil War; but forget the rats etc. If you were royal and even if you were kept in confinement in the Tower (like Louis of Orleans who wrote his poems there) it wouldn't be on a straw mattress with gruel and rats. "But of course it makes a good story for the Beefeaters. :) H"
Carol responds:
This is as good a place as any for my reaction to the Tower of London, which I visited for the first and last time on my recent visit to England. I must say that the Beefeater who conducted the tour was more neutral toward Richard than I expected him to be (possibly because he was responding to pressure from the Richard III Society or other groups to present a *somewhat* accurate picture of the Tower's history, but he was clearly playing to the crowd. (I thought he was going to mention Margaret Pole, but whatever he said about her took about sixty seconds and I missed it.)
The Bloody Tower display, in contrast, was pure Shakespeare, with any hints that the slit-eyed evil uncle might not have murdered his nephews so faint that the average tourist passing through (many of whom seem to have *wanted* blood and gore) would have missed them, and the hints erased altogether by the projected scene of (I think) Sir Laurence Olivier as Richard projected onto the wall.
Much as I liked seeing the Tower from the outside and thinking about what I knew of its history, I hated seeing it turned into one more manifestation of the Richard as wicked uncle myth. (I didn't like the fake poppies, either, but I understand and respect the nation's desire to commemorate World War I. Too bad the interest in late medieval history seems less universal--not that we Americans, who seem to think that history began with World War II, have any room to talk!)
I might as well throw in the National Portrait Gallery. When I saw that the displays began with the Tudors, I was afraid that they'd taken down the portrait of Richard (which I like despite the pointed thumb, which I suspect results from a misreading of the underpainting or tracery or whatever it's called). I mentioned to the girl at the desk that he predates the Tudors, to which she responded, "I don't know about that, but he's still there." (She works at the gallery but hasn't read the accompanying placards, apparently!)
At any rate, there he was, just past the black statues of a few much earlier kings and right next to Henry Tudor. On the one hand, I thought how unfortunate it was that the exhibit created (or reinforced) the impression that English history began with the Tudors and ignored the whole Yorkist/Lancastrian era, and (to all intents and purposes) everything that came before. On the other hand, I was glad that they didn't show Edward IV because they would have had to include Edward V and the whole "Princes in the Tower" melodrama to get from E 4 to Richard. At least, the display commentary seemed fairly objective about Richard. I didn't even get the sense that they depicted him as the last medieval monarch, only as the loser at Bosworth. I could have missed something, though, since I didn't have as much time in the NPG as I would have wished and felt more rushed than I would have if I'd been alone. It was better by far than the Tower, and I was glad to see him there even among such uncongenial company.
Carol
Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
"I read the Alison Weir book about Elizabeth of York recently. Parts of it were not too bad, especially since not that much is known about the private lives of EofY and HT - certainly an improvement on 'The Princes in the Tower.' [snip} A lot of the same old tosh and some new thrown in. She is still obsessed with the James Tyrrell confession, and is convinced that EofY's last tour was all to do with finding out about the murder. [snip]."
Carol responds:
Too bad she doesn't realize that there was no confession. Her hero, Sir Thomas More, made it up.
Carol
Carol responds:
Re: The Tower and the NPG (Was: Prisoner in 1485...}
<<I might as well throw in the National Portrait Gallery. When I saw that the displays began with the Tudors, I was afraid that they'd taken down the portrait of Richard (which I like despite the pointed thumb, which I suspect results from a misreading of the underpainting or tracery or whatever it's called). I mentioned to the girl at the desk that he predates the Tudors, to which she responded, "I don't know about that, but he's still there." (She works at the gallery but hasn't read the accompanying placards, apparently!)>>
...brings back a memory from my one and only visit to England. When I was there--and this was back in 2008--I remember being a little disoriented by the gallery's setup at first. Then it seemed like I just turned around and suddenly Richard was right in my face! I wasn't prepared mentally or emotionally. It moved me very much.
Later in the gift shop, I was flipping through posters when the shop assistant came over to help. He asked, "Are you looking for Richard the Third?" Of course I stammered that yes, I was, and how did he know? He said there was always somebody looking for Richard. :)
Cathy
Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
On 8 Aug 2014, at 18:00, "wednesday.mac@... []" <> wrote:
Thank you, everyone, for your help -- and Marie, for directing me to an article I had in my notes but hadn't considered as a source for Tower cells.
It looks like the Tower is out when it comes to rats in cells, but the Fleet might do for my purposes as it (and The Rules) accommodated both commoner and noble.
I happened across an invaluable doctoral dissertation on the medieval prisons in London, available for download as a link within an article here:
Prisons and Punishments in Late Medieval London - Medievalists.net
It certainly makes clear some of the reasons why Richard wanted to revise some of the laws for commoners, especially when it came to holding someone before their hearing vs. after they were sentenced.
Thanks again for all your help.
~Weds
Re: Prisoner in 1485...and royal apartments?
Jan here.
Weds, were you able to download this thesis? I have been reading it in bits
following from your lInk & have hit a runtime error so I can't complete
it.
If you, or anyone else on the Forum, has the full version I would love to
have a copy, please.
There is also an article on Murder, Alchemy and TWOTR by Peter Fleming on
medievalists.net that might be worth a
look; I haven't finished it yet either!
On 8 Aug 2014, at 18:00, "wednesday.mac@...
[]" <>
wrote:
Thank you, everyone, for your help -- and Marie, for directing me to an
article I had in my notes but hadn't considered as a source for Tower
cells.
It looks like the Tower is out when it comes to rats in cells,
but the Fleet might do for my purposes as it (and The Rules) accommodated both
commoner and noble.
I happened across an invaluable doctoral
dissertation on the medieval prisons in London, available for download as a
link within an article here:
Prisons and Punishments in Late Medieval London -
Medievalists.net
It certainly makes clear some of the reasons why Richard wanted to revise some of the laws for commoners, especially when it came to holding someone before their hearing vs. after they were sentenced.
Thanks again for all your help.
~Weds
