Iconic Tower of London’s Prison Section’s Graffiti Deciphered

A fortress, a prison, a palace; once even the Royal Mint, and still housing the crown jewels. The iconic fortress on the Thames River, the Tower of London, is the subject of a new investigation with the help of cutting-edge technology. The graffiti and texts etched by some of the prisoners who’d committed the most heinous of crimes, such as high treason, as they bided their time, awaiting their fate(s).

Famed Inmates, Intelligible Cries for Help

Dr Jamie Ingram, who is heading the project to study graffiti in the Tower of London, told the  Observer:

“There were supposed to be 79 examples of graffiti there, according to the historic survey. By the end of the survey that I conducted, there are 354. Very fine viewing of the surface of the walls has allowed us to identify what else is there … acknowledging that every mark is important, rather than just those that have been left by the famous prisoners.”

Incidentally, the project began with studying the Salt Tower on the south-eastern corner, which is part of the curtain wall Henry III put up in the 1230s. One of the prisoners was the infamous Hew Draper, a Bristol innkeeper who was accused of practicing sorcery, imprisoned in 1561. It is claimed that he carved an astrological sphere with zodiac signs, even after destroying all his magic books.

• The Prophecy Of The Tower Of London Ravens: Less Than Six Means Doom
• Tower of London: A Palace, a Prison and a Place of Execution

Newly discovered graffiti in the Salt tower in the Tower of London. (Jamie Ingram/ Historic Royal Palaces )

Revealing the Faded Scribblings

The researchers used raking light, laser scanning, and X-ray analysis. Ingram explained how light that is shone at a certain angle, enhances the creation of shadows, and provides an excruciatingly precise window into what the scribbles were.

One section of a wall houses graffiti by three hands, possibly, with the dates 1571 and 1576 also inscribed. The team hopes to uncover the meanings of at least some of the words, although deciphering all of them might be too ambitious the release notes. There is a lot of religious symbolism on display, heavily pictorial, with a lot of crosses reflecting religious imprisonment.

At least one of the passages seems to have been authored by a woman, with loose references to a husband and a river.

“We haven’t got any specific records of female prisoners in that tower. This is possibly a woman’s voice, which is incredibly rare in the graffiti, and the first example we’ve got in the Salt Tower itself. We know that there were women at the tower. They’re just not represented in these physical first-person records. This is a rare primary record of a woman’s presence, whether she’s a prisoner herself or the wife of the prisoner,” explained Ingram.

Ingram’s team will now move to the south-west corner of the complex, and study the Byward Tower, which too houses “amazing” graffiti of its own. A Channel 5 production, ‘ Inside the Tower of London ’, is featured on My5 in a documentary form, available for public access within the UK.

• The True Origins of the Legend of Brutus of Troy and the London Stone
• Fighting the Flaming Wrath – The Great Fire of London, 1666

The graffiti in the Salt tower in the Tower of London (highlighted) is scrawled on many walls, but is so faint it had previously not been found. (Jamie Ingram/ Historic Royal Palaces )

The Tower of London: Prisoners, Big and Small

The Tower of London’s history traces back to 1066, following William the Conqueror’s victory over Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, who instructed his nobles to construct iron-clad fortification, literally. The defenses featured a ditch dug in a strategic location, with the earth piled into a mound—the motte—topped by a wooden tower or barracks. This structure housed soldiers, weapons, horses, food supplies, and valuables and served as a last-ditch refuge if the outer defenses were breached.

The Tower of London itself, nearly square at 107 by 118 feet (32.6 meters by 36 meters), stood almost 90 feet (27.5 meters) tall, with walls ranging from 15 feet (4.5 meters) thick at the base to 10 feet (3 meters) at the top. Imposingly built, it dominated the skyline, visible from miles around and asserting Norman authority over the city, reports The National Geographic .

By the 16th century, the Tower was no longer a royal residence, abandoned by Henry VII. It morphed with its darker reputation as a prison – the preceding two centuries had witnessed political prisoners as inmates. Among them were John the Good, King of France, captured in 1356 at the Battle of Poitiers, and Charles, Duke of Orléans, taken prisoner at Agincourt in 1415. Later, the infamous disappearance of Edward V and his brother, Richard, Duke of York, the so-called “Princes in the Tower”, changed the historical trajectory.

During the reign of Henry VIII, many high-profile figures were imprisoned – Thomas More, once the king’s close friend and Lord Chancellor, found himself incarcerated after opposing Henry’s break from the Catholic Church and refusal to recognize his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. More’s defiance led to his arrest, conviction for treason, and eventual execution.

The Tower continued to serve as a prison during the religious upheavals that followed Henry’s death. Edward VI, Henry’s Protestant son, attempted to alter the line of succession in favor of his Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey, bypassing his Catholic half-sister Mary and Protestant half-sister Elizabeth.

When Edward died in 1553, the 17-year-old Jane was proclaimed queen, but her reign lasted just nine days. With little support, including from her own council, Jane was deposed in favor of Mary, later imprisoned in the Tower, where she remains known to history as the tragic “Nine Days’ Queen.”

Top image: The White Tower and outer walls of the Tower of London.    Source:   Udo Weber /Adobe Stock

By Sahir Pandey