Until the reign of Edward the Third the records of the Tower are miserably meagre and scanty. It would require a far more imaginative mind than I possess to infuse any life or movement or interest into them. It has been my humble intention merely to narrate in this work what is of undoubted authority as regards the history of the Tower, and were I even capable of adding colour to the dry chronicles of historical fact in these pages, it would be distasteful to me to try to enhance the interest of this narrative by setting down that which I have no good evidence for regarding as strictly true; or to attempt to adorn the dry facts, which the old chroniclers have given us, by imaginary incidents and tales for which there is no better evidence than that coming from the author’s imagination. An historical novel such as that most entertaining work the “Tower of London,” by Harrison Ainsworth, is a delightful effort of the writer’s imagination; but a book which professes to be a history must not be a hotch-potch of truth and fiction. That would be the worst of literary frauds. Feeling strongly on this matter, I must beg my readers to pardon the dulness of my records relating to the early history of the Tower, but I can assure them that what I have written is, as far as possible, accurate history; and, at the same time, beg them not to be disappointed if they find no flights of fancy in these pages.
The illustration at page 198 represents the Byward Tower, not Middle Tower.
Nothing has come down to us of any authentic value regarding ancient London until Tacitus writes of Londinium as a place celebrated for the numbers of its merchants and the confluence of traffic. In the days of the Roman occupation St Albans, then called Verolanium, was a far more important place than Roman Londinium; and, perhaps, it was Verolanium whereto Cæsar marched in his second descent on Britain in B.C. 54, and which he described as a place “protected by woods and marshes.” Such a description would equally apply to Londinium, and, for aught we can know to the contrary, the town Cæsar describes as being surrounded by woods and marshes may have been our capital.
To the north of Roman London stretched vast primeval forests, and where St John’s Wood now stands, the wild boar roamed in trackless thickets. Marshes lay to the west and south, on the sites of Westminster and Southwark; a less likely place for the situation of a great capital, with the exception of St Petersburg, could not be found in Europe. On what is now Tower Hill stood a Celtic fortress, protected by the Thames on the south, and by forests and fens on the north. This fortress was admirably placed, protecting the approach from the seaward side of the river, and guarding against any attack from the land side. The Romans were evidently of this opinion, for after conquering the woad-stained Britons, they erected a fortalice, defended by strongly fortified walls, upon the same site.