Situated in East London, the Tower of London has dominated the cities landscape ever since it was first constructed by William the Conqueror in 1066, and today it is probably the most haunted building in England.
The first structure on the site was a motte-and-bailey castle, and the castle was built on the old Roman walls, which once formed the corner of Londinium. Traces of the Roman wall can still be seen in the grounds. By 1100 the structure consisted of a partly ditched enclosure containing buildings of wood surrounding the first stone building on the site to be built, the White Tower. Gundulf, who was made Bishop of Rochester in 1077, oversaw the building of the tower to its completion in 1097. It was a bastion of Norman power, towering 90 feet over the capital city and the walls vary from 15ft thickness at the base to almost 11ft in the upper parts. The medieval Kings of England lived in the White Tower with their families and their court and the White Tower has changed surprisingly little from that time.
The White Tower was not built as a prison and for centuries it was only used to confine the privileged few. There are some prisoners who did try to escape; the first successful attempt was by Ranulf Flambard, Bishop of Durham in 1101. Sadly there were those that were not so lucky and they include Prince Gruffydd of Wales who, in 1244, fell and broke his neck while escaping. The White Tower once held torture chambers within its crypt and its corridors are said to be haunted by a White Lady, whose perfume has been smelt around the entrance to the Chapel of St John the Evangelist, the most perfect specimen of Norman architecture in Great Britain, and has caused many a guard to retch. On one occasion when a Mr. Arthur Crick, decided to rest as he made his rounds around the White Tower, he Sat on a ledge to slip off his right shoe and was in the process of massaging his foot, when a voice behind him whispered, “There’s only you and I here”. This elicited from Arthur the very earthly response “Just let me get this bloody shoe on and there’ll only be you”!
Tower Green outside the White Tower was reserved for Royal executions, while Tower Hill served as the public execution place for all the other traitors. The bungled execution of Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury, is said to be reenacted on Tower Green, on the anniversary of her execution in 1541 and her blood curdling screams can also be heard. Margaret holds a special place in English history as being the last Plantagenet princess. The Plantagenet’s were the ruling dynasty in England from 1154 until 1485 and Margaret was extraordinary, reaching the age of 69 or 70 in an era where the average life expectancy for a woman was 45 years.
Born in 1473, she was the daughter of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, and Isabel, elder daughter of the Earl of Warwick. In About 1491 Henry VII had given Margaret in marriage to Sir Richard Pole, whose mother was the half-sister of the king's mother, Margaret Beaufort. At her husband's death in 1505 Margaret was left with five children, of whom the fourth, Reginald, was to become cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury. On his accession, Henry VIII reversed her brother's attainder, and in 1513, created her Countess of Salisbury in her own right, and an Act of Restitution was passed by which she came into possession of her ancestral domains: the king considered her the saintliest woman in England, and, after the birth of the Princess Mary, later Mary I, Margaret became her godmother and sponsor in confirmation and was afterwards appointed governess of the princess and her household. As the years passed there was talk of a marriage between the princess and the countess's son Reginald, who was still a layman. However, when the matter of the king's divorce from Katharine of Aragon began to be talked of, Reginald Pole boldly spoke out his mind in the affair and shortly afterwards withdrew from England.
Princess Mary was still in the countess's charge when Henry married Anne Boleyn, but when he was opposed in his efforts to have his daughter treated as illegitimate, he removed the countess from her post, though she begged to be allowed to follow and serve Mary at her own charge. She returned to court after the fall of Anne, but in 1536 Reginald enraged Henry and though the Countess and her eldest son had written to Reginald in reproof of his attitude and action, the King was determined that the family should pay for the insult. In November, 1538, her eldest son, Henry, Baron Montague, another son and other relatives were arrested on a charge of treason and they were committed to the Tower of London. In January 1539, with the exception of Geoffrey Pole, they were executed. Ten days after the arrest of her sons, Margaret herself, despite her age, was arrested and examined by William FitzWilliam, Earl of Southampton, and Thomas Goodrich, Bishop of Ely. In Southampton's custody she was committed to Cowdray Park, near Midhurst, and there subjected to all manner of indignity. In May, Cromwell introduced against her a Bill of Attainder, the readings of which were hurriedly got over, and at the third reading Cromwell produced a white silk tunic found in one of her coffers, which was embroidered on the back with the Five Wounds, and for this, which was held to connect her with the Northern Uprising. She was "attainted to die by act of Parliament" and also lost her titles. The other charges against her, to which she was never permitted to reply, had to do with the escape from England of her chaplain and the conveying of messages abroad. After the passage of the Act, she was removed to the Tower of London and there, for nearly two years, she was "tormented by the severity of the weather and insufficient clothing". In some sense her execution was the continuation by Henry VIII of his father's programme of eliminating possible contenders for the throne.
Her execution was timed for Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine Howard to show that the old era had passed and on the morning of May 27, 1541 Margaret was told she was to die within the hour. She answered that no crime had been imputed to her; nevertheless she was taken from her cell to the place within the precincts of the Tower of London, where a low wooden block had been prepared. As Margaret was of noble birth, she was not executed before the populace, though there were about 150 witnesses. According to some accounts, the countess, who was frail and ill, was dragged to the block, but refused to lay her head on it, having to be forced down. As she struggled, the executioner's first blow made a gash in her shoulder rather than her neck. She then leapt from the block and ran away pursued by the executioner, being struck eleven times before she died. The whole bloody scene is said to be replayed in full.
No.7 Tower Green appears to be a quaint old building and its living room overlooks Tower Green itself. Built in the mid-1600’s it has been occupied since 1990 but before that it stood empty for a long period of time. Eerie stories have been connected to this house and one story surrounds previous occupants. These occupants were a reverend and his wife, who became so scared of taking a bath because she claimed to have been touched by an entity that she believed was a man from the Elizabethan era whist taking one.
Another bizarre story involved a family of four, who were the last people to live here before it stood empty for years. One of the daughters of the family wore contact lenses and one evening just before going to bed, the girl took them out as normal and left them on the bathroom shelf. The following morning the contacts were no where to be seen and the family looked high and low for them, yet they were never found. Three weeks later, when the entire family was sat together watching television, the daughter who had lost the contacts let out a loud scream. The whole family was shaken by her outburst but none so shaken as the daughter. There in her lap were her missing contacts and she claims that they fell from the ceiling and hit her on the shoulder before landing in her lap.
The current occupant is a warden of the Tower and he too has experienced odd occurrences. Soon after moving in he built a workshop in the area that used to be part of Raleigh’s Walk, and almost immediately tools began to go missing. Whilst cleaning out an empty room he planned to use as his bedroom he felt the atmosphere in the room go really heavy and felt like someone was watching him. Things soon took a turn for the worst once he began to sleep in the room and every single morning, at exactly 2am, for the next few months, he would always awake feeling rather hot and unable to breathe or move. One night the occupant woke up at 2am and thought ‘here we go again, Walt is about to pay me his nightly visit’. He had for some reason nicknamed the entity Walt after Sir Walter Raleigh. Within a couple of minutes he heard a loud click which came from the door which led out to his workshop and the door began to slowly open. Nothing else happened and after a while the occupant urged himself out of the bed to investigate but found nothing which could explain why the door opened by itself. He was terrified beyond belief and consequently could not sleep for the rest of the night.
Anne Boleyn is said to be one of the most enduring ghosts of the Tower of London, she haunts the vicinity of the White Tower, the King's House, Tower Green, and the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. She was Henry VIII's second queen and was famously imprisoned, tried and executed here. Anne was an intelligent middle class girl who rose through the ranks to become consort to one of Europe's great matrimonial prizes - King Henry VIII. She was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, a diplomat, and a niece of the Duke of Norfolk. She was raised and educated in the courts of France and Burgundy but was recalled to England to become a Lady in Waiting to Katherine of Aragon. She could claim royal descent through her mother's family back to Edward I (1239 - 1307) which was vital for any consort of the era. Henry VIII, after having left the Catholic fold, became supreme head of the Church of England and married Anne and her coronation was the first time that cannons were used at the Tower of London to mark a celebration.
The public didn't like her for the simple fact that she didn't have the glamour of Katherine of Aragon. To counter this, Anne tried to outshine her predecessor in terms of charity. When she became pregnant, everybody was certain that it would be a prince. However, Anne gave birth to the future Elizabeth I - a disappointment to the whole court. This was the start of the end for Anne. Over the course of the next two years, she had several miscarriages and her arguments with the King became more vitriolic. Henry VIII believed that this new marriage was cursed and he wasn't given a male heir as punishment. He needed an escape from the marriage, but the only way out of it that he could see was if Anne died!
Anne was then arrested on charges of treason, sorcery and incest with her brother Viscount Rochford (to produce that all important male heir) - all of them false accusations. Members of Anne's household were imprisoned, tortured and interrogated, but the most damning evidence came from Jane, Viscountess Rochford - Anne's sister in law. The result was that Anne was taken to the Tower of London from Greenwich Palace, arriving by water through Traitor's Gate. On her arrival at the Tower, Anne is reported to have asked 'Shall I go into a dungeon'? 'No madam' came the reply, 'You shall go into the lodging you lay in at your coronation.' This would have been part of the royal palace that once lay to the south of the White Tower, and which Henry had renovated for his new Queen just three years earlier. She was tried in the Lieutenant's lodgings on the site of today's Queen's House (built just after the event in 1540). Her judge was her own uncle, Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. Anne always denied the charges against her, and the evidence was circumstantial to say the least. Nonetheless, (and unsurprisingly), guilty verdicts were passed. Her brother and the other four men accused of having carnal knowledge of the Queen were executed on Tower Hill on 17 May 1536. Anne Boleyn's execution took place on 19 May 1536 at 8 o'clock in the morning near the White Tower. It was the first public execution of an English queen and before she lay her down she said her last words to the crown that had come to watch her die.

'Good Christian people,
I am come hither to die, for according to the law, and by the law I am
judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I am come
hither to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that, whereof I am
accused and condemned to die, but I pray God save the king and send him
long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there
never: and to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord. And if
any person will meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best. And
thus I take my leave of the world and of you all, and I heartily desire
you all to pray for me. O Lord have mercy on me, to God I commend my
soul.'

After being blindfolded and kneeling at the block, she repeated several times:

'To Jesus Christ I commend my soul; Lord Jesu receive my soul.'

Her remains are buried in the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula (St Peter in Chains), the oldest chapel royal in England. In one account a Captain of the Guard is said to have seen a light source coming from within the locked empty Chapel Royal in the White Tower. He climbed a ladder to peer down into the chapel, and witnessed a procession of people in ancient dress, with an elegant woman walking in front of them. He recognised the slender figure as Anne Boleyn from portraits that he had seen. In 1864 a sentry is said to have challenged a headless figure thought to be Anne Boleyn, his bayonet passed straight through her, and he fainted in shock. He was saved from court martial for being asleep at his post, on the word of other guards, who said they had witnessed a similar occurrence.
It was in the Queen’s House that Guy Fawkes was interrogated and after torture on the rack in the White Tower, was where he signed a confession incriminating his fellow conspirators, who included Robert Winter, Christopher Wright, John Wright, Thomas Percy and Thomas Winter.
The screams of Guy Fawkes have been heard echoing through the tower, as they did when he was tortured before being hung, drawn and quartered. The Queen’s House is probably the most haunted building in the complex and is also haunted by a White Lady and a Grey Lady. Nobody knows who either was in life, but the White Lady was once seen standing at a window waving to a group of children who were in the building opposite and where the face of the Grey Lady should be, there is instead a black void. A man in 15th century dress strolls around upstairs in the Queen’s House and it may also be his footsteps that have been heard thumping up the staircase. The last prisoner to stay in the Queen's House was Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Fuhrer of Nazi Germany.
In 1815 or 1816 a sentry on guard in the Martin Tower, which was built by Henry III, witnessed the apparition of a bear coming from out of the Jewel Room. He stabbed at it with his bayonet, which passed through the apparition and embedded in a door, whereupon the bear promptly disappeared. The sentry died a few days later, possibly of shock, but he had already confided in people about what he had seen and another sentry verified his story.
The most notorious part of the prison today is the Bloody Tower, which was originally known as the Garden Tower due to the constable’s garden that was by it. Built in the early 1220s, the Bloody Tower is a gatehouse which controlled the main river entrance to the castle until the Tower's defences were extended for Edward I. It was renamed the Bloody Tower because it is believed that the Tower’s most famous crime – the murder of Edward V and his younger brother Prince Richard – was commited here in 1483. It is also believed to be home to the ghostly Princes in the Tower.
Edward V was born at Westminster Abbey on 2nd November 1470 where his mother Elizabeth Woodville had taken refuge after his father, Edward IV, had fled the country. In 1471, two months after his father recovered the throne, Edward was created Prince of Wales and before he was even three years old he was removed from his mothers care and established in an independent household at Ludlow Castle in Shropshire. Edward IV died suddenly in 1483 and in his will Edward IV appointed his brother Richard of Gloucester, as Protector. But, before Edward V’s coronation, which was arranged for 4th May, could take place, he and his younger brother, Richard were declared illegitimate by Parliament after the Bishop of Wells and Bath revealed that when Edward IV had married Elizabeth Woodville he was already betrothed to Lady Eleanor Butler and as a betrothal constituted the same as marriage in those days, his marriage to Elizabeth was invalid and his sons were illegitimate. This meant that their uncle was able to ascend the throne as Richard III.
The boys meanwhile had been sent to live at the Tower of London and were often seen playing happily around the grounds. But by the autumn of 1483 they had vanished and were never seen again and according to the generally accepted version of their murders by their mother Elizabeth Woodville, It was their uncle, Richard III, who had ordered for their murders. It is said that the agents of the Constable of the castle, Sir James Tyrell suffocated one of the boys whilst they slept and stabbed the other to death. The murderers then carried their bodies down the narrow stairway and buried them under a covering of rubble in the basement. They were later reburied close to the White Tower but all knowledge of their graves was lost. When two skeletons were discovered beneath the staircase in the White Tower in 1674, they were presumed to be the remains of the two little princes and were given a Royal burial in Westminster Abbey on the orders of Charles II.
According to one story, guards in the late 15th century, who were passing the stairs in the Bloody Tower, spotted the shadows of two small figures gliding down the stairs. These figures were identified as the ghosts of the two princes who have been seen many times since, dressed in white nightgowns and clutching each other in terror. Those that have seen them have been so moved that they have tried to reach out to console them but when they approach them, the trembling boys back slowly against the wall and fade away.
Sir Walter Raleigh spent most of his thirteen years of imprisonment in the Bloody Tower. He was later beheaded at Westminster in 1618 but makes an appearance now and again, and has been seen as recently as 1983 by a Yeoman Guard on duty in the Byward Tower. The same apparition was also seen a year and a half later by a different sentry in the same area. The ghost of a woman with long dark hair and wearing a white cap was seen standing near a window in a room in the Bloody Tower in 1970 and in 1975.
Lady Jane Grey, the 9-day queen, was the eldest daughter of Henry Grey, the Marquess of Suffolk and the great niece of Henry VIII. The Duke of Northumberland, John Dudley married his son Guildford to Lady Jane as part of a scheme to defy the provisions of Henry VIII’s will and to divert the succession to the Grey family and then persuaded Edward VI to change the succession in Lady Jane’s favour. Upon his death she became Queen on 10 July 1553 and As Queen, she took temporary residence in the royal apartments at the Tower of London. Just nine days later, on 9th July, she was removed from the throne by Edward VI's sister; the Catholic Mary I. Jane and Guildford were arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London and After Jane and Guildford had been tried and found guilty of high treason, they were returned to the Tower of London whilst Mary and her councilors decided what to do with them.
During the winter of 1553-4 Sir Thomas Wyatt, son of the famous poet who had been implicated in the trial of Anne Boleyn hatched a plot to place Princess Elizabeth on the throne and to marry her to Edward Courtenay, a descendant of Edward IV. The plot was betrayed by Edward himself as he was only a young man and he had already spent 15 years of his life in prison, most of it in solitary confinement, and he buckled under the pressure. The first to suffer the consequences was Lady Jane’s father, Sir Henry who went off into hiding at Astley Park in Warwickshire but he was betrayed by his own gamekeeper and was arrested, taken to London and a week later was placed on a charge of high treason. The involvement of Jane's father in the Wyatt rebellion forced the Queen to give in and condemn Jane to death, even though she and Guildford had not played a part in the rebellion.
Lady Jane Grey and her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, were executed on 12 February 1554 at the Tower of London. Guildford was the first to lose his head and after the deed was done his body was thrown into a cart, and his head was placed in a cloth. His remains were then taken to the chapel within the Tower precincts. By this time there was a scaffold made upon the green over against the White Tower, for Lady Jane to die upon. Lady Jane made her way to the scaffold carrying a book in her hand, and she preyed all the way till she arrived at the scaffold. After she had climbed the scaffold she said to the people in the crowd,

'Good people, I am come hither to die, and by a law I am
condemned to the same. The fact, indeed, against the queen's highness was
unlawful, and the consenting thereunto by me: but touching the procurement
and desire thereof by me or on my behalf, I do wash my hands thereof in
innocency, before God, and the face of you, good Christian people, this
day'

After that she kneeled down and turned to the Dean of St Paul’s, asking if she could read the psalm of Miserere mei Deus, which she was allowed to. Then she stood up and gave Mistress Tilney her gloves and handkerchief, and her book to Master Bruges, the lieutenant's brother. After that she untied her gown, which the hangman went to help her with, but she desired him to leave her alone. The hangman kneeled down, and asked her forgiveness, whom she gave most willingly. Then he willed her to stand upon the straw: which doing, she saw the block. Then she said, 'I pray you dispatch me quickly.' Then she kneeled down, saying, 'Will you take it off before I lay me down?' and the hangman answered her, 'No, madame.' She tied the handkerchief about her eyes; then feeling for the block said, 'What shall I do? Where is it?' One of the standers-by guiding her to the block, which she laid her head down upon, and stretched forth her body and said: 'Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit!' And so the sixteen year old Lady Jane Grey was beheaded and ever since then Lady Jane’s ghost is said to appear on the anniversary of her death. She has been seen in the Salts Tower, built by Henry III in about 1205, where she flits about quietly and the last recorded sighting of her ghost on this anniversary was in 1957, when two Tower guards saw a white shape forming on the battlements.
Another haunting in the Salt Tower is for some, very real and very frightening. Said to be one of the most haunted areas in the tower's complex, dogs will not enter this area at all, and Yeoman Warders will not enter after dark, after a Warder told how he was almost throttled by a strong but unseen force.
As recently as 1995, an American tourist was taking photographs of the Tower of London. She took a picture of Traitor's Gate and on having the film developed; she could clearly see what appears to be a man wearing a 16th century Yeoman's uniform. Many of the Towers inmates were brought by water entering the castle via the riverside Traitor’s Gate.
The Wakefield Tower was built in the early 13th century and it was here that the Crown Jewels were housed from 1870 until 1967. The tower was probably named after William de Wakefield, Kings Clerk and holder of the custody of the Exchanges in 1334. It is haunted by the ghost of Henry VI, who was murdered here just before midnight on 21st May 1471.
Henry was born at Windsor Castle in 6th December 1421 and was the only son of Henry V and Catherine of France. He acceded to the throne on 1st September 1422 when he was less than a year old and was crowned King of England and France at Westminster Abbey on 5th November 1429. He married Margaret of Anjou in 1445 and they had one son, Edward, Prince of Wales. For a while he managed to hold onto the territories his father had gained in France but by the 1450s the English had been expelled completely. During his reign his own mind failed him more than once and he had to submit the country to the rule of a Protector, Richard, Duke of York. This led to Civil War and he was disposed in 1461 and the throne was taken over by the Duke of York’s son, Edward IV. He was briefly restored in 1470 but was disposed again in 1471 and a month later he was finally murdered at the age of 49, only days after his son had been killed in battle. It is thought that he was murdered by the Duke of Gloucester, who later became Richard III, and he was later buried in the Lady Chapel at Chertsey Abbey, which soon became a shrine. It was later said that Richard III moved Henry’s remains to St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle to put a stop to the pilgrimages. On the anniversary of his murder his ghost is said to appear as the clock ticks towards midnight and he then paces around the tower until, upon the last stroke of midnight, he fades away into the stone walls.
The Royal Armoury holds 40,000 artifacts from armour to iron maidens and it is here that Henry VIII’s suit of armour is exhibited. Several guards have reported feeling a crushing sensation that suddenly descends upon them as they enter the room but lifts as soon as they leave the room.
Other ghostly traditions include the ghost of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland who was executed in 1553.
John was the eldest of Edmund Dudley’s sons and When Edmund Dudley was executed, John was then taken into the home of Sir Richard Guilford, who became his guardian. As a young man Dudley took part as Guilford's lieutenant in the campaign of 1523 in France under the king’s brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and won a knighthood on the field for gallantry after his valour at the crossing of the Somme. He was soon to gain prominence in the mock warfare of the royal court and so joined the group whose task it was to amuse the King. At the coronation of Anne Boleyn in 1533 he was invited to be a cup-bearer, and he would lead the procession at the christening of the Princess Elizabeth. Already the Earl of Warwick, Dudley was given the title of Duke of Northumberland in 1551.
When Edward VI was dying, he and Dudley concocted a document which barred both Elizabeth and Mary (the remaining children of King Henry VIII of England) from the throne, in favour of Lady Jane Grey (who married Dudley's elder son, Guilford Dudley). Dudley was forced to surrender to Mary when she took over the throne and He was arrested and executed for high treason in 1553.
The sounds of phantom patrols marching past outside have been heard as well as Phantom funeral carriages. Terrible screams and cries coming from the torture chambers and Unknown foggy apparitions have been seen on the battlements. In the late 1970s a ghostly female, who apparently vanished on reaching a brick wall, was observed near Traitor's Gate.
The Tower of London is also said haunted by the ghost of Jane, Viscountess Rochford, who was beheaded on Tower Green. Jane was the sister-in-law of Anne Boleyn (see above) and it was on her evidence that Anne and her brother (Jane's husband) were executed. Born Jane Parker in 1505, she was the daughter of Henry Parker, 10th Baron Morley and Alice St John, both from old English families with Roman Catholic tendencies. She was married to George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, the brother of Lady Anne Boleyn in 1525 and as it had been an arranged marriage Lady Rochford's relationship with her Boleyn in-laws was not easy and her marriage was particularly unhappy, but there is no apparent truth in the theory that her husband was a homosexual. In fact, he had a reputation as a noted womaniser - which might explain the marriage's miserable status.
Jane was quite unpleasant in her character and was she plotted with her sister-in-law to banish one of the King's mistresses from Court in 1535. But, When the King discovered her involvement; Lady Rochford was exiled for a few months instead. Jane was also deeply jealous of the close relationship which her husband had with his sister, Anne. However, there was no justification for the savage act of betrayal she performed in 1536. When Lord Rochford was arrested as one of Queen Anne's supposed lovers, it was Lady Rochford's sworn affidavit which helped convict him of incest and treason. There was no truth in these rumours, but they provided the mirage of legality which the Boleyn’s' enemies needed to send Lord Rochford to the block on May 17th. Queen Anne followed two days later, accused of witchcraft as well. What makes Lady Rochford's act of betrayal even more shocking is that she and Lord Rochford are said to have had a son together, a son who later became Dean of Lichfield under Queen Elizabeth I.
Following her husband's execution, Lady Rochford was later given a placement in the household of another of King Henry VIII's queens, Anne of Cleves, and it was she who questioned the Queen about the consummation, and therefore the validity, of her marriage to the King. She would later testify in July 1540 to further the King's divorce from his fourth wife. Following this divorce, she became a Lady of the Privy Chamber to yet another of Henry's wives, Catherine Howard. When the teenaged Queen grew bored with her ill-tempered, moody and repulsive husband, it was Lady Rochford who helped organise secret meetings between Queen Catherine and the handsome courtier Thomas Culpeper. It is not certain whether or not Catherine's relationship with Culpeper ever became a fully sexual affair. When the King began his progress to the North of England in June 1541, Queen Catherine and Lady Rochford's indiscretions could no longer be hidden from the rest of the court. Protestant courtiers unearthed enough evidence to prove that the Queen had not been a virgin when she married the King in 1540, and they later discovered a love letter she had written Culpeper which mentioned Lady Rochford as their go-between. Lady Rochford was arrested and taken to the Tower of London, where she was interrogated for many months, but as an aristocrat she was not tortured. Under the psychological pressure, she lost her sanity. The King had to order a new law which allowed the execution of the insane in order to have her condemned to death.
Lady Rochford was executed immediately after Queen Catherine on 13 February 1542, by a skilled axe-man while the block was still wet and slippery with her mistress's blood. According to reliable sources she confessed before her death,

"God has permitted me to suffer this shameful doom as punishment for having contributed to my husband's death. I falsely accused him of loving in an incestuous manner, his sister, Queen Anne Boleyn. For this I deserve to die."

She was buried in the Tower of London along with Catherine Howard, and very close to the bodies of Queen Anne and Lord Rochford.
The last execution in the Tower took place in 1941 during the Second World War (1939-45).

Cool Story....Very Interesting

ta very much

Sam, do you know anything, or have you been to no.50 Berekley Square???

i have read stuff about it about it, but have never bothered researching bout it cause i don't think the place even exsts anymore. i'll look it up thpugh and see what i can find on it!

here you go my little chickadee, hows this for you???

50 Berkeley Square was the most famous of London's hauntings in Victorian times. Often families would take a detour to look at the house, during tours of the houses of heroes such as William Pitt, Earl Grey and Clive of India. At the time, Prime Minister, George Canning lived two doors away from No.50 until his death in 1927.

Mystery Magazine has detailed the Victorian's love of the macabre in the Spring Heeled Jack and Victorian Ghost sections of this website. Popular newspapers and magazines of the day would excite the imaginations of the populace with stories such as the following about Berkeley Square:

“The house in Berkeley Square contains at least one room in which the atmosphere is supernaturally charged, fatal to mind and body. A girl saw, heard and felt such horror in it that she went mad, and never recovered sanity enough to tell how or why"

A gentleman, a disbeliever in ghosts, dared to sleep in it, and was found a corpse in the middle of the floor, after frantically ringing for help in vain. Rumour suggests other cases of the same kind, all ending in death" Mayfair Magazine, 10 May 1879.

In 1840, there were reports of "supernatural" noises coming from the house, which was often empty and deserted for long periods. Jessie Middleton in her Grey Ghost Book wrote that a little Scots girl in a kilt haunted the house. The child was supposed to have been tortured to death in the top-most room of the house. Another of Jessie's stories suggests a girl called Adeline jumped from the top floor window to escape from her lecherous Uncle and since has haunted that room.

Charles G Harper, also investigated No 50 in his book "Haunted Houses":

"There is quite a literature accumulated around No.50 and even in the staid pages of Notes and Queries the questions of "haunted or not haunted?" and if so, "By what or whom?" have been debated. It seems something or other, very terrible indeed haunts or did haunt a particular room. Whatever it is, has been sufficiently awful to have caused death, in convulsions, of at least two fool hardy persons who have dared to sleep in that chamber. The story is told of one who was not to be deterred by the fate of an earlier victim. He was sceptical and practical as well. Before retiring to bed he gave some parting instructions to those who occupied the rest of the house. "If I ring once," said he, "take no notice, for I might be only nervous, without due course; but if I ring twice come to me."

They bade him good night. When the clock struck twelve they heard a faint ring, followed by a tremendous shout. On opening the door they found the unfortunate man in a fit. He died without ever being able to reveal what it was. A shuddery pendant to this story is that which tells how, a dance being given next door, a lady leaned against the wall dividing the Haunted House from its neighbour, and distinctly felt an inexplicably dreadful shock."

The Mayfair magazine wrote about the house many times, in its May 1879 issue it published "The very party walls of the house, when touched are found saturated with electric horror. It is uninhabited save by an elderly man and woman who act as caretakers, but even they have no access to that room. This is kept locked, the key being in the hands of a mysterious and seemingly nameless person who comes to the house every six months, locks up the elderly couple in the basement, and then unlocks the room, and occupies himself in it for hours."

Elliot O' Donnell further intrigued the nation in his book "Phantoms of the Night", writing in a hand that wouldn't seem out of place in a Barbara Cartland novel, Elliot describes an incident that happened at Berkeley Square. Two sailors were scared out of their wits when a "shapeless and horrible something" appeared. One of the sailors leapt to his death; the other arrested for his murder, claiming that a ghost had pushed his friend out of the window.

Jack Hallam offers a more sober account of Berkeley Square in his book "Ghosts of London" and offers a likely cause to the sightings in the form of a recluse called Mr Myers.

The first reports of the ghost happened about 1840 when Miss Curzon, who died in 1859 aged 90, owned the house. Miss Curzon must have contacted Jessie Middleton, who then wrote about the "girl in the kilt". It wasn't until after Curzon's death that 50 Berkeley Square achieved notoriety when the building was leased to a Mr Myers, whose eccentric conduct caused him to be referred as "an odd cross between Scrooge of Christmas Carol and Miss Havisham of Great Expectations"

In 1873, the local council sued Myers for not paying taxed or rates. He didn't appear in court, but the judge summed up "the house in question is known as a 'haunted house' and has occasioned a good deal of speculation amongst the neighbours."

A writer in 1880 said that Myers had leased the house for his impending marriage and began to furnish the house, when his wife-to-be left him.

"This disappointment is said to have broken his heart and turned his brain. He became morose and solitary, and would never allow a woman to come near him" said the writer.

Myers, to escape society lived in the famous top room of the house and would often walk around the house at night to see what should have been the scene of his happiness bathed in candlelight. His midnight wanderings could have laid the foundations for ghost story.

Hallam also writes that in 1907, ghost author Charles Harper revealed "The secret of the house, according to Mr Stuart Wortley, was that it belonged to Mr Du Pre, of Wilton Park, who shut his lunatic brother in one of attics. The captive was so violent he could only be fed through a hole. His groans and cries could be distinctly heard in the neighbouring houses."

So could it be the nocturnal wanders of a jilted recluse or the insane cries of violent lunatic spurned the stories of a lurking murderous ghost? Or may be the house was damned, haunted by angry ghosts, hell bent on revenge on the living.

Today, world famous antique booksellers, the Maggs Brothers, occupy the property. Over a hundred years after the first incidents, the tourists still ask if the house is haunted but after 30 years of occupation, the business has seen no evidence of a ghost.

References:
Mayfair Magazine 10 May 1879 - Hallam states 1879 while Alan Baker claims 1878.
Haunted Houses by Charles Harper (1907?)
Grey Ghost Book by Jessie Middleton (Unknown)
Phantoms of the Night by Elliot O'Donnell (1956)
Ghosts of London by Jack Hallam (1975)
Ghosts and Spirits by Alan Baker (1998)

Thanks for such an interesting overview Sam! I've been to the Tower a few times and must admit didn't feel any untoward 'vibes.' Then again, this was in broad daylight! (lol)

In the early 90's there was a Ghostwatch live from the Tower, on Halloween night. I missed it (natch) - don't know if anything was recorded or not. I've since been told the Ghostwatch programs were spoofed up, so if this was the same team it would make any 'ghost sightings' from that night a bit suspect. I think it was for real. Wouldn't have thought they would need to make anything up with that lot going on. More a case of figuring what to leave out!

Does anyone else remember this program?

Hey Sam, love the stories. I visited the tower once and after reading your stories
it was almost like taking the tour all over again. Your attention to historical detail is
amazing. Makes for a great read. You mentioned you were writing a book in your
other thread and I was wondering if you've written any others. If you have I would
really like to read those. Can you give us some titles or is this your first attempt at
a book.

I forgot to ask in my earlier post, Who was the last person to be executed at the
tower in 1941 and are there any known hauntings attributed to it.
By the way, I think the stories of No.50 Berkley Sq. are great. Maybe you should
add them in your book.

Excellent information! Very interesting. Thanks!

no this will be the first book that i have ever written, but thank you anyway, will let you know when it is finished and published so that you can be one of the first to read it if you wish. just got to find a publisher who is intersted first.

Josef Jakobs was the last person executed at The Tower of London on 15 August 1941. He was shot by a firing squad composed of soldiers from the Scots Guards.

here's a link if you want to read more about him???

last man to be executed at tower of london

You're confusing two different productions with similar titles. The one about the Tower was Ghostwatch Live, and it aired for two nights over Halloween 2001. It was a "scientific ghost hunt" presented by a number of media celebs (including Paul Darrow and Claudia Christian), but I have no idea how it turned out, the only news attention it got was the announcement that it was going to air.

The show you're confusing this with was Ghostwatch which aired Halloween Night 1992. That one was a teleplay written by Stephen Volk (later the creator of ITV's afterlife) and was never meant as anything other than fiction, although a number of media celebs (including Michael Parkinson and Craig Charles) appeared as themselves and it was mocked up as a live remote broadcast. Thousands of people complained about that one for several reasons, but the gist was that the intensity of the psychological horror was a bit much for the average viewer and most people missed the statement at the beginning that the whole thing was fiction. Essentially it was Orson Wells' War of the Worlds for the late 20th C.

You mean to say, you got through that whole thing? haha

must have been too much for your brian to cope with i guess!

Thanks for the great read.
I love reading about the Tower and it's colourful history.
Well Done

thank you very much!

if there is by chance any ghost that may have missed out please let me know!