Ghosts at the Tower of London

Tower Of London
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With its long history as a royal palace, a prison and a place of execution, it is natural that legends of ghosts would abound.

• In the middle of the 13th century, the ghost of Thomas à Becket was seen while the inner curtain wall was being built. His ghost is said to have struck it with his cross, so destroying it. Of course, this could be just an excuse for shoddy workmanship thought up by inventive, medieval cowboy builders!
  
  
• Of all the deaths at the Tower of London, that of the little princes is probably the most infamous. Said to have been murdered in 1483 at the instigation of his uncle, Richard III, they were aged just 9 and 12. Sightings of them have occasionally occurred in the Bloody Tower. Witnesses say they were dressed in white nightshirts and simply stand holding hands before fading from sight.
  
  
• The most traumatic ghost for witnesses must be that of the 70-year-old Countess of Salisbury - "The last of the Plantagenets" - executed by Henry VIII for political reasons. Instead of going meekly to her death on the block, she tried to flee from the executioner. He chased her and repeatedly struck her with his axe until she was dead. Witnesses say they have seen this grisly drama replayed with a shadow of the axe hanging over the area.
  
  
• Another of the most famous deaths was that of Henry VIII's second wife, Anne Boleyn. She has been seen by many people who have described her as headless and going from the Queen's House to the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula leading a procession of dignitaries down the aisle to the site of her final burial place under the chapel's altar.
  
  
• The Tower of Salt is probably the scariest place in the Tower of London. Dogs won't go in and Yeoman of the Guard (Beefeaters) don't like to go in after dusk since of them was nearly strangled by something unseen.
  
  
• Another woman executed during the Tudor period was Lady Jane Grey who was last seen in 1957 by two Guardsmen on the anniversary of her execution, exactly 403 years after her death. The two witnesses described a white shape "forming itself on the battlements".
  
  
• A rifleman claimed, at his court-martial, the reason he was found unconscious at his post was that a white figure approached him. He issued the traditional three challenges of "Who goes there?" and, on receiving no answer, he attacked the figure with his bayonet which went straight through. Two witnesses said they had witnessed the incident from the Bloody Tower so he was acquitted. Personally, I would like to know if the witnesses were his good friends before believing this story.
  
  
• Ghosts at the Tower of London are not restricted to humans. In January 1815 a sentry saw a bear coming out of a doorway of the Martin Tower. He attacked with his bayonet which, like the incident described above, went right through. He was also found unconscious and died, two days later, of fright, it is said.
  
  
• A recent haunting appeared to have been captured in a photograph when a photographer on a shoot for a magazine became increasingly uneasy when flashes went off unexpectedly and bulbs blew for no reason. He was horrified to discover later when they were developed that many were blank and one contained an unexplainable ball of white light which seemed to explode in the centre of the picture. The photographer was convinced that there was a supernatural explanation and vowed never to return to the Tower of London.

Copyright © 2005 Carol Fisher