[Illustration: _Postern Gate in the Byward Tower._]
To mention the Warders of the Tower necessitates something more than a passing allusion to that most worthy body of veterans, since the Warders of the Tower of London belong to the most interesting of the old fortress’s institutions. Yeomen-Warders is the proper designation of the forty or so old soldiers who guard the Tower, who show and describe its different parts to visitors, and whose civility and patience are matters for the highest encomium. Originally these guardians were employed by the Lieutenant of the Tower to guard the prisoners committed to the State prison under his charge. But in the reign of Edward VI. the Duke of Somerset, after his liberation from the Tower, caused those warders who had had charge of his person during his imprisonment to be appointed, as a reward for their attention, extra Yeomen of the Guard. And from that period dates, with some modifications, the costume still worn by the Tower Yeomen. The Warders of the Tower are all picked men, and have all been appointed to their posts for good service in the Army. In the old days when the State trials were held at Westminster Hall the “Gentleman-Gaoler”—as that Warder was named whose affair it was to escort and guard the State prisoner to and from his trial, and who carried the processional axe (still kept in the Queen’s House) before the prisoner with the edge turned away from him on the journey to Westminster, and almost always with its edge towards him as he returned, as a sign that he was condemned to die—was the principal of the Tower Warders. The office is still maintained, inasmuch as he takes the front place on State occasions of ceremony, when the old axe is taken from its honoured repose in the Lieutenant’s study in the Queen’s House.
The Warders of the Tower must not, however, be confounded with the Yeomen of the Guard, the latter of whom are more usually known by the name of Beefeaters, and who, in their picturesque and striking uniform, make so effective a display on State occasions, such as the Levées at St James’s Palace, and State balls and concerts at Buckingham Palace. Whether the designation “Beefeater” originated from a supposed, but non-existent French word “buffetier” or not is a matter of no importance; but what is interesting is the fact that this body of men, with the exception of the Pope’s Swiss bodyguard, are the only set of attendants belonging to a European Court who retain a costume similar to that worn by their predecessors over three centuries ago.
