Historical Hauntings - the Tower of London

Photo courtesy of the Historic Royal Palaces
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There’s no better time for a ghost story than Hallowe’en and no better place to tell them, than at the Tower of London.  Over the centuries those ancient stone walls have witnessed murder, torture and imprisonment - and soaked up the distressed spirits of those who died there. Whether you believe in ghosts or not, there are compelling accounts, frequently by Yeoman Warders, of sights so terrifying that one witness even died of fright two days later. Of the ten ghostly apparitions associated with the Tower of London, here are my two favourites.

Portrait of a woman thought to be
Margaret Pole.

Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury

By all accounts Margaret Pole was a feisty character, but she needed to be with King Henry VIII amongst her enemies. Margaret was an unusual woman for a number of reasons: firstly, because she was a peeress in her own right (rather than being married to a nobleman) and secondly, because she reached the age of 70 – which was quite an achievement in Tudor England.

However, Henry VIII was not a fan mainly because Margaret was a Plantagenet (a rival line of accession to England’s throne)  and her son, Reginald, was a vocal critic of Henry’s religious and marital policies. Knowing Henry had charged him with treason Reginald fled abroad, but not so Margaret – who Henry arrested, put through a farcical trial and sentenced to death.

The Martin Tower at the Tower of London
Find out more at #TowerGhosts

On 27^th May 1541, Margaret Pole was marched onto Tower Green at the Tower of London, where a crowd of 150 spectators had assembled to witness her execution. Margaret, however, was having none of it. She defiantly told the executioner that she refused to kneel at the block and if he wanted to cut her head off, he’d have to do it where she stood. You can almost feel sorry for the man – caught between a strident old woman and the orders of his king. In the end, the executioner took a swipe at Lady Pole, missed her neck and badly cut her shoulder. Bleeding heavily, Margaret's white hair stained red, she took to her heels and ran. Eventually, it took 11 blows to fell the countess in what was more butchery than execution.

And so the story goes that on the anniversary of her death, May 27^th, her ghost re-enacts her brutal end in a macabre dance around Tower Green....

 

Anne Boleyn

Queen Anne Boleyn

Another of Henry’s victims was his second wife, Queen Anne Boleyn. Once again Tower Green provides the backdrop for a grizzly scene with a French swordsman smiting Anne’s head from her shoulders on her husband’s command. Her body was removed, placed in an empty arrow chest for a coffin and buried beneath the floor in the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. But it seems the lady lies uneasy for in Victorian times a Captain of the Guard noticed a light burning in the locked chapel. Suspicious of what was going on he placed a ladder against the chapel window to inside. What he saw is described in this excerpt from Ghostly London, London 1882.

“Slowly down the aisle moved a stately procession of Knights and Ladies, attired in ancient costumes; and in front walked an elegant female whose face was averted from him, but whose figure greatly resembled the one he had seen in reputed portraits of Anne Boleyn. After having repeatedly paced the chapel, the entire procession together with the light disappeared.”

 

The elegant memorial to those executed on Tower Green
(author's own picture)

In 1864 a sentry of the King's Royal Rifle Corps was patrolling the grounds when he came upon an misty apparition of a woman in Tudor dress, wearing a French hood – but lacking a face! He challenged her to stop but she kept advancing so he thrust at the figure with his bayonet. Apparently, as the bayonet passed through the mist he received an electric shock. The sentry was court-marshalled for sleeping whilst on duty – but a fellow officer came forward and said that whilst he was in the Bloody Tower, he heard the man shout out a challenge and was in time to witness the shadowy figure pass through the bayonet and then the guard himself!

  

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Those clever people at the Historic Royal Palaces have created a special hour long tour of ‘Ten Historical Hotspots’ within the Tower of London. If you are in London this Hallowe’en and want to find out more visit here:  

http://bit.ly/TowerGhosts

This blog post is part of the Trick or Treat Hallowe'en Blog Hop.
See links below for the participating blogs.