Page:Survey of London by John Stow.djvu/71

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Towers and Castles
43

the year 1090, the 4th of William Rufus, and was again by the said Rufus and Henry I. repaired. They also caused a castle to be built under the said tower, namely, on the south side towards the Thames, and also incastellated the same round about.

Henry Huntingdon, libro sexto, hath these words: "William Rufus challenged the investure of prelates; he pilled and shaved the people with tribute, especially to spend about the Tower of London, and the great hall at Westminster."

Othowerus, Acolinillus, Otto, and Geffrey Magnaville, Earl of Essex, were four the first constables of this Tower of London, by succession; all which held by force a portion of land (that pertained to the priory of the Holy Trinitie within Aldgate); that is to say, East Smithfield, near unto the Tower, making thereof a vineyard,[1] and would not depart from it till the 2nd year of King Stephen, when the same was abridged and restored to the church. This Said Geffrey Magnaville was Earl of Essex, constable of the Tower, sheriff of London, Middlesex, Essex, and Hertfordshire, as appeareth by a charter of Maud the empress, dated 1141. He also fortified the Tower of London against King Stephen; but the king took him in his court at St. Albones, and would not deliver him till he had rendered the Tower of London, with the castles of Walden and Plashey in Essex. In the year 1153 the Tower of London and the castle of Windsor were by the king delivered to Richard de Lucie, to be safely kept. In the year 1155, Thomas Becket being chancellor to Henry II., caused the Flemings to be banished out of England,[2] their castles lately built to be pulled down, and the Tower of London to be repaired.

About the year 1190, the 2nd of Richard I., William Longshampe, Bishop of Elie, Chancellor of England, for cause of dissension betwixt him and Earl John, the king's brother that was rebel, inclosed the tower and castle of London, with an outward wall of stone embattled, and also caused a deep ditch to be cast about the same, thinking (as I have said before) to have environed it with the river of Thames. By the making of this inclosure and ditch in East Smithfield, the church of the Holy Trinitie in London lost half a mark rent by the year, and the mill was removed that belonged to the poor brethren of the hospital of St. Katherine,[3] and to the church of the Holy Trinitie

  1. Ex charta.
  2. Roger Wendover, John Bever.
  3. "St. Katherine's mill stood where now is the Iron Gate of the Tower." — Stow.