Dedicated to My Friends Who Like Weapons.

Pictures first, philosophic waxing second on this. Today we went to the Tower of London. Here are pictures. I will probably write more about it later, when I talk about the Victorian treatment of statused floor burials and another post on graffiti.

Our first view of the Tower.

There's actually twenty towers within the Tower complex. The oldest was built by William the Conqueror. It's called the White Tower and is undergoing some serious renovation work. But many of them you could go into, mostly by climbing these immense spiral staircases. The English have cultivated a healthy love of staircases. They put them everywhere.

Traitor's Gate

This is the Traitor's Gate. It was situated so that traitors could be taken to it directly via barge. There used to be a moat around the tower that flushed with the tide of the Thames, but Queen Victoria filled it in because it basically turned into the largest open sewer in London.

If you say its name three times, it'll appear in a mirror. Or something.

The famous Bloody Tower. Nobody was actually killed fo'sho' here. In fact, very few people died at the Tower. Most of them were carted to Tower Hill and got the chop there. It was considered a favor to be executed here, but I'll be talking more about the mechanics of that in my next post about chapel floor burials.

Looks pretty tame from here... but...

This is the room in the Bloody Tower where the two princes in Richard III were allegedly killed. Allegedly. There's an exhibit about them in the room itself.

Ravens!

Cor, I love these birds.

This one was digging at the moss. So cute!

Each of the Tower's ravens is banded and named.

Also, the feathers of one wing are clipped so that they can't fly off.

 There have been ravens at the Tower since it was first built. Well, sort of. See, there's this legend that if there are ravens at the Tower, England will never be invaded. Supposedly, they've been in continuous occupation ever since. But most experts are pretty sure that's a Victorian invention.

Still doesn't stop 'em from being darn cute.

This weathervane marks that this is a royal residence.

The Tower is still used as a castle. The Queen keeps apartments here; however, she rarely occupies them. All the Beefeaters and their families live on the Tower grounds, though.

...crap, I can't remember which tower this is. Cradle Tower, or Salt Tower maybe? No, wait, maybe this is the Jewel House.

This is the chapel of Peter ad Vinculum- Peter in Chains. I wanted to get pictures in there, but we were not allowed.

Beefeater apartments!

The Queen's House. See the guard?

Me, Kelly, Bloody Tower.

A rack!

A scavenger's daughter!

Manacles! (In case you didn't know, these are all torture devices.)

Doghouse for ravens.

More towery stuff.

The ravens have a cannon.

Coat of arms, self-explanatory.

I actually got yelled at for taking these pictures.

They're in the Jewel House, and photography is not allowed in there, apparently...

(I took those pictures because I thought the progression of supporters was nifty.) Unfortunately, I got no pictures of the Crown Jewels, which makes me sad.

Henry VIII's horse armor! From when he was young and not huge, obviously.

Kiddy-sized armor.

Anime makes you flexible!

This is part of the Line of Kings, a thingy that Charles II did. This carved horse is like, two hundred years old or something.

More horses. The older ones look way nicer than the newer ones.

Let's talk about big giant flintlocks for a moment.

Seriously, this gun's enormous. And it was actually used- this isn't a trade rifle. You get two pictures because one is not sufficient to convey length.

A lance the size of the whole dang display case. This was used for jousting. I have no idea how they lifted it up!

The Tower was once used as a civil center sort of thing. This is a book of tax registry stuff. I have a roommate who's a finance major. The two might not be unrelated. Also, check out that gorgeous lion and unicorn next to it- you can totally see the influence of 18th century orientalism.

Besides having the GREATEST NAME EVER, this man had the moxie of eighty flappers. He tried to steal the Crown Jewels by, I kid you not, stuffing them down his pants. He would have gotten away with it if it weren't for a meddling kid- the Tower Warden's son came home early, basically. So this guy gets arrested, is freed, and eventually gets a pension from the king. No, seriously. This guy is amazing and my personal hero.

More kiddy armor.

The tallest set of armor found and one of the shortest. The big 'un's about seven feet tall.

It's a saddle made of wood and bone and it's like five hundred years old.

This is a wheelock revolver. I'd love to have one, just because it's so dang cool.

A lovely basket-hilt rapier.

This is a remnant of the last execution to take place at the Tower. The bullet-catching wall was short, so Josef Jakobs, the German spy who was killed in 1941, had to sit down.

There is a long history of fancy ornamental weaponry being given to the state as gifts.

This is what happens when you give a gun nut a Bedazzler.

Tiffany's made this thing.

Pimp my revolver.

Gilding a submachine gun: good idea or great idea?

Nick or Trez, either of you wanna tell me what these things are?

This is a piece of the original scaffold. Not every prisoner of the Tower had their head chopped off- that was sort of an honor. There was actually a pretty interesting system of honor amongst prisoners. Friends of the king got their heads cut off at the Tower itself. It is said that Anne Boleyn was given a French swordsman as an executioner as a big favor, because it was said to be less painful than an axe. Important prisoners got their heads chopped off at Tower Hill. Petty criminals got themselves hanged.

Can you guess what this thing is? (The axe isn't THE axe, it's just an axe. But yes, this is the block.)

It was once believed that this frightening thing was an executioner's mask. But there's no evidence than an executioner would have worn such a thing. It's more likely a punishment for gossip or slander. I think it looks like a potato smile.

More torture implements! Another set of manacles.

The scavenger's daughter is the name of this thing.

Stuff?

My thing for flintlocks should not be a secret by now.

I honestly have no idea what this thing is. Apparently it fires nine balls at once?

It's like a soup kettle crossed with a cannon.

Once upon a time, parts of the Tower burned down. It had a lot of old weaponry in it, and while most of them were destroyed, a few survived. This is the sign that points out what those relics are.

And these are the leftovers!

A really cool view of Tower Bridge.

This is the interior of Sir Walter Raleigh's prison cell.

With a room like this, can you see why his wife decided to join him in prison?

A better view of Tower Bridge, from when we climbed up on the walls.

There we go, that's me and then that's Tower Bridge in the background.

They had some medieval helmets to try on!

Kelly said I should be more dynamic or something. So, uh, fisticuffs. Because there were no swords and the crossbow was a) utterly disappointing and b) chained to a table on the other side of the room.

They had some weird metal skeletons on the wall. One was an archer, one was a swordsman who also had a crossbow. We got pictures with the one that was reachable. Kelly was all cute and joined the good fight for England. I tried to pickpocket him.

One more gun, captured at Gallipoli.

Phew, that took forever. Back to your regularly scheduled rambling!