In the Bloody Tower Sir Thomas Overbury was poisoned in 1613. This is one of the blackest crimes that stain Tower history. Overbury had been a friend of Raleigh’s, and had often visited him in his confinement; now Sir Thomas himself, because he had condemned the marriage between the Earl of Somerset and Lady Frances Howard, was brought to the same tower. Lady Frances determined to have Overbury put out of the way, and a notorious quack and procuress of the period, Mrs. Turner, had been hired to administer the drug. But this slow-poisoning proving too lengthy a process, two hired assassins ended Overbury’s sufferings by smothering him, at night, with the pillows of his bed. Some time afterwards, by the confession of a boy who had been at the time in the employment of the apothecary from whom the drugs were bought, the crime was disclosed. Horror and indignation caused a public outcry for vengeance: the Lieutenant of
[Illustration: THE BLOODY TOWER AND JEWEL HOUSE (WAKEFIELD TOWER), LOOKING EAST]
the Tower, Elwes, with Mrs. Turner and the two murderers, were all put to death. Somerset and his Countess were imprisoned in the room in the Bloody Tower, where Overbury had died; they were eventually pardoned and “lived in seclusion and disgrace.”
Another victim, who died in this tower during Charles I.’s reign, was Sir John Eliot, a man of great abilities and at one time Vice-Admiral of Devon. He had already been imprisoned, and released, before his entry to the Tower in 1629, and he passed away, in his cell, in 1632. Mr. Trevelyan has said of him, “His letters, speeches, and actions in the Tower reveal a spirit of cheerfulness and even of humour, admirable in one who knows that he has chosen to die in prison in the hands of victorious enemies.” During his last months he contracted consumption in his unhealthy quarters and suffered harsh treatment. Even when Sir John had died the hard-hearted King refused to allow his body to be given to his relatives for burial, and commanded him “to be buried in the parish in which he died.” He was laid to rest in the Chapel on Tower Green, which may be called the parish church of the Tower.
Felton, the murderer of Buckingham, was thrown into this tower in 1628 and Archbishop Laud was prisoner here from December 16, 1640, to January 10, 1644. Here, also, in July, 1683, Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex “cutt his own throat,” as the Register of St. Peter ad Vincula shows. The infamous Judge Jeffreys came here as prisoner in 1688, having been “taken” in a low ale-house in Wapping, and is reported to have spent his days in Bloody Tower “imbibing strong drink,” from the effects of which employment he died in 1689. This old tower has tragedy and misery enough in its records to deserve its name, and it is a mistake on the part of Tower authorities to allow so interesting a building to be closed altogether to the public. The narrow chamber above the archway on the south side still contains all the machinery for raising and lowering the portcullis which, when down, would at one time have prevented all access to the Inner Ward. This is believed to be the only ancient portcullis in England that is still in working order.