The Chapel of St John the Evangelist in the White. Tower and the Chapel Royal of St Peter-ad-Vincula on Tower Green, while both part of the Tower of London, appear separately under the heading of Churches and Chapels. But something needs to be said about the role of the Tower of London in general in the history of Christian London.
The Tower of London, London’s most important historical treasure after Westminster Abbey, is a typical medieval fortress consisting of a central tower or ‘keep’ (the White Tower), inner and outer defensive walls and battlements, and a moat (now dry) crossed by a single drawbridge. Its fame arises from its strategic location at the southeast corner of the old City of London and from its use as a royal prison (it also served as a royal residence up until Tudor times). Stories growing out of its long and romantic history are inexhaustible; the yeoman warders never tire of telling about the murder of King Henry VI in the Wakefield Tower, of the two little princes done away with in the Bloody Tower by assassins hired by Richard III, of the tragic execution of Lady Jane Grey, and of Sir Walter Raleigh’s long imprisonment, during which he wrote a History of the World.
Since the days of Wyclif the Tower has played a grim part in Christian history, as the laws against heretics and the shifting religions positions of the monarchs during the Reformation brought many dissenting churchmen and not a few laymen here. Some of the more famous include the Lollard Sir John Oldcastle, Bishop John Fisher, Sir Thomas More, Bishops Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop William Laud, the Puritan divine Richard Baxter and the Quaker William Penn (who wrote a book, No Cross, No Crown, within its walls). Untold numbers of Lollards, monks from the dissolved monasteries, Jesuits, and Nonconforming Christians of all sorts, suffered in the Tower over the centuries, and many gave up their lives on Tower Hill nearby.