TRAITOR’S GATE

TRAITOR’S GATE

The infamous entrance to the Tower of London, Traitors Gate, is the water-gate entrance to the Tower of London complex.

It forms part of St. Thomas’ Tower, which was built to provide additional royal accommodation.

The gate was designed by the Medieval architect Master James of St George, on the orders of King Edward I, between 1275 and 1279.

It was built to provide a new water-gate, by which King Edward could arrive at the Tower by river.

In the proceeding centuries, as the Tower of London increasingly came to be used as a prison for those accused of treason, it acquired its current name of Traitors Gate.

Prisoners were brought by barge along the Thames, passing under London Bridge, where the grisly heads of recently exEcuted prisoners, were displayed on pikes, and through Traitor’s Gate.

In Tudor times, such famous political prisoners as Edward, Duke of Buckingham, Sir Thomas More, Queen Catherine Howard, the tragic Lady Jane Grey, Seymour, Duke of Somerset, Princess Elizabeth, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex and James, Duke of Monmouth, the errant son of Charles II, all entered the Tower, by the fearsome Traitors’ Gate.

Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen Elizabeth I, was also to pass-through Traitors Gate.

Her half-sister Queen Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII’s first marriage to Katharine of Aragon, ordered Elizabeth’s arrest, believing her to be involved in the Wyatt Rebellion.

Finding no evidence of Elizabeth’s involvement in the plot, Mary eventually released her.

Over the centuries, hundreds of prisoners passed through the gate, many never to return alive.

In the mid-19th century, the outer archway of the gate was bricked up, because the water level had risen.

The gate then had little practical use for would-be visitors – traitorous or not – at most phases of the tide.

Its said, if you listen carefully, you can hear haunting whispers and soft cries, carried by the wind over the waves.
Are these the murmers of prayers, from those souls passing under the gate, to certain death?