The Tower of London is one of the most notorious castles in the whole of the world.
It’s the place where 3 Queens of England were beheaded inside the walls on the small
piece of grass Tower Green, just outside the Tower’s chapel.
But below the floors of the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, lie the remains of hundreds of
people who were executed nearby on Tower Hill.
Those who lay inside the chapel include Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s close friend and
chief minister, Catherine Howard Henry VIII’s fifth wife, Margaret Pole the Countess of
Salisbury who was brutally beheaded inside the Tower and Anne Boleyn, the notorious second
wife of Henry VIII.
Many of the people who were brought to the tower to be imprisoned during the medieval
and Tudor Period were high profile prisoners, and were people who were suspected of the
most serious crimes in the land.
One crime in which one would pay for with their lives was Treasons, and the infamous
entrance to the Tower of London was named after the sheer amount of people who were
brought into the Tower that way who were accused of being a traitor.
So join us today as we look at, ‘Traitor’s Gate, the infamous entrance to the Tower of
London.’
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The infamous entrance to the Tower of London known as Traitor’s gate is simply a water
gate entrance that granted access from the River Thames into the tower.
The Tower of London at the time in the medieval period was a key royal residence, and above
traitor’s gate are the medieval royal lodgings of St Thomas’ Tower that overlook the River
Thames.
The gate was designed by the Medieval architect Master James of St George after he was commissioned
by King Edward I between 1275 and 1279 to provide a new water gate to the Tower.
It was planned for then the King to arrived to the Tower by river.
So the King would travel down river from other residences of palaces before the gates would
be opened and then the royal procession would emerge inside the Tower’s walls above Tower
Wharf and they would go up the steps into the fortress’s courts being overlooked by
the White Tower.
But as time went on, this entrance became used for many more people than just the King
and his royal entourage.
In the centuries after, the water gate was used to transport state prisoners into the
Tower and in particular those prisoners who were accused of treason, an offence that you
paid for with your head.
Because of this the gate then became known as Traitor’s gate, and prisoners were usually
brought by barge along the River Thames, and were taken first under London Bridge.
Here the heads of recently executed prisoners were placed on pikes here, and it would show
the prisoner what would be awaiting them when they left the Tower to go to Tower Hill to
be beheaded.
Famously when Catherine Howard, Henry VIII’s fifth wife was brought to the Tower of London
to await her execution, she passed under the heads of her former lovers, the men she was
accused of sleeping with behind the King’s back.
But in the Tudor Period, there were countless famous political prisoners and figures who
were brought into the Tower via traitors gate.
For example, Edward the Duke of Buckingham, Sir Thomas More, Catherine Howard, Lady Jane
Grey, Edward Seymour the Duke of Somerset, The future Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Devereux
the Earl of Essex.
Each of these were taken through traitors gate, however one interesting case is that
of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife.
She had been found accused of adultery, incest and treason after Thomas Cromwell spun a web
of lies and deceit to force the King out of his marriage to his second wife.
She was brought down the River Thames by barge, and for long it was believed that she entered
via traitor’s gate.
But this was not the case.
She was taken to the Tower on the 2nd May 1536 by barge from Greenwich, but upon getting
to the towe she did not pass through the gate, she actually went into the Tower via the Queens
steps on Tower Wharf, and was then brought in through the court gate.
When Anne arrived at the Tower, she was greeted by William Kingston who met her by the steps
leading from traitors gate.
Anne asked, ‘Shall I go to some dungeon?’
And Kingston the constable of the Tower replied with, ‘No madam, you shall go to your chambers
where at your grace lay before your coronation.’
Whilst she was imprisoned in the Tower, Anne did go through bouts of hysteria and depression,
and she was known to slowly lose her mind after she was placed on trial and found guilty,
knowing that she would be executed for the lies and deceit.
She was executed on Tower Green, a short walk under the Bloody tower’s arch from where
Traitors gate can be found.
Some do believe though that Anne was brought to the Tower via traitor’s gate.
The term traitors gate was used from 1543, and Anne’s daughter would also find herself
passing under the notorious entrance.
Princess Elizabeth, the Protestant daughter of King Henry Viii posed a significant threat
for his catholic daughter, Mary I when she came onto the throne.
Elizabeth was accused in being involved in Wyatt’s rebellion against Mary, and on Palm
Sunday 1554 was taken by barge down the River Thames to the tower.
It was the same place where her mother was beheaded, and no doubt for Elizabeth this
played on her mind and tortured her along the way.
She passed under London Bridge and was taken into the Tower through traitor’s gate.
She refused at first to land at the gate saying she was no such traitor, and the weather was
heavy with a downpour of rain.
But Elizabeth had no option, she was forced to land at traitor’s gate and then found
herself passing under the arch of the Bloody tower, where she may have seen glimpses of
the scaffold.
The very scaffold leftover from the execution of her cousin Lady Jane Grey who was beheaded
upon the request of Mary I.
Elizabeth found herself at the age of 21 a prisoner in the bell tower, but she managed
to avoid the fate of a traitor and nothing could be proven against her.
Traitor’s gate continued to be used for those accused of crimes serious enough to
warrant a stay inside the Tower of London.
It really was during the reign of King Henry Viii that it was used, but also later it was
used by subsequent monarchs, and another person who passed under there was James Scott the
Duke of Monmouth.
He led a rebellion in 1685 to overthrow his uncle King James II, and after this failed
he was tried and was transported to the Tower to await his execution.
Monmouth was taken down river, and into the Tower where he stayed before his execution
was performed on Tower Hill.
The blundering executioner Jack Ketch made a mess of the proceedings, and for this butchered
Monmouth’s execution.
So Traitor’s Gate started out simply as a water gate and a royal entrance that would
grant privacy for the Kings and their entourage to enter the castle, but it gained a much
more sinister reputation.
It’s interesting to consider that this shift in notoriety came also with the Tower itself
as during the Tudor Period it transitioned from a royal residence to a prison to house
the most serious of offenders.
Standing opposite the Tower of London on the south bank of the River Thames, you can clearly
see where the entrance is, with the words ‘Entry to Traitor’s Gate,’ painted just
below Tower Wharf.
It had a key effect for King Henry Viii as the journey to the Tower of London, one of
the last that many would make had a key propaganda effect.
The terror of passing under London Bridge with the heads of former prisoners executed
for treason would be a key aspect of the journey.
No doubt the prisoners who passed under traitors’ gate would have been terrified as they knew
the reputation that the gate had, and also that the Tower had following the executions
that had been carried out there.
Stories that emerged on areas of the Tower such as Traitors gate helped to make the Tower
of London one of the most feared prisons in history.
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