The Tower
The
Tower at war
Arms and armour have been held in the Tower of London for over 900 years, with the Armouries (later the Royal Armouries) being responsible for their use by successive monarchs, their retainers and armies. Over the centuries, the Armouries evolved into one of the Tower's major attractions – first, for foreign dignitaries; then, in the reign of Charles II, for the general public.
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The term 'Armouries' derives from the four displays managed by the organisation in the 17th century: 'The Spanish Armoury', 'The Artillery Room', 'The Small Armoury' and 'The Line of Kings'.
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In the Royal Armouries collection, the largest suit of armour made for a man is 2.06 metres (6 feet 9 inches) tall and was constructed in north Germany in 1535. The smallest armour in the collection is just 0.95m (3ft 1in) tall. It has been traditionally associated with both Richard, duke of York (one of the 'princes in the Tower') and Jeffrey Hudson, the dwarf of Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I.
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Records show that, on 14 June 1667, 9,677 barrels of gunpowder were stored in the White Tower. This may have had something to do with the fact that the Second Anglo-Dutch War had broken out in February 1665. Only two days before this record was written, the Dutch fleet had attacked Sheerness and Chatham, sunk three 'first-raters' and towed the British flagship back to Holland.
However, storing so many explosives within the City's walls could be considered foolhardy. Only the previous September, the Great Fire of London had licked at the edges of the Tower, almost causing a huge explosion from stored gunpowder. That time, the Tower was saved, in part, by the efforts of diarist Samuel Pepys.
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Between November 1914 and April 1916, 11 German spies were executed in the Tower. Among them was Carl Lody, who was tried in camera and sentenced to death. He was shot by an eight-man firing squad on 6 November 1914. A yeoman warder present at the time later wrote: 'The prisoner walked steadily, stiffly upright, and yet as easily and unconcerned as though he was going to a tea-party, instead of to his death.'
Carl (or Karl) Lody had been convicted for offences under the Defence of the Realm Act – sending two letters (one from Edinburgh and another from Dublin) to Berlin that 'contained information with regard to the defences and preparations for war of Great Britain'. Lody, posing as an American citizen named Charles A Inglish, had borrowed a bicycle from his Edinburgh landlady and cycled round the Queensferry area, noting the defences at the port.
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Josef Jakobs was the last person to be executed in the Tower. A sergeant in the Intelligence Section of the German General Staff, he was captured after injuring his ankle while parachuting into England. When arrested, he was found to have a revolver (which he had shot to summon help because of his injuries), an attaché case containing a wireless set, a map with two nearby RAF stations marked on it and 498 £1 notes. He was executed by an eight-man firing squad on 15 August 1941. Because of his broken ankle, he was shot while sitting in a chair, which is still preserved in the Royal Armouries stores.
With the execution of Josef Jakobs, the Tower ceased to be used as a place for the detention of state prisoners. However, the garrison of the Tower continued to detain its own prisoners, who had committed various infractions of military law, including the Kray twins (see Prisoners).
For more information on military prisoners and executions at the Tower in the 20th century, see Stephen Stratford's excellent website.
