Many tourists often think that the Tower of London is a tower. In fact, it is an ancient architectural complex along the Thames, consisting of more than 20 towers.
The geographical location and surrounding attractions of the Tower of London
Tourists tend to confuse the Tower of London with the Tower Bridge. Remember, one is a bridge, the other is an old castle, and it is a neighbor.
The Tower of London Pier is adjacent to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. Visitors with London Pass usually go to Greenwich Observatory by boat after visiting the Tower of London, Tower Bridge and Belfast, so that they can make full use of London Pass.
Counting, the Tower of London has a history of thousands of years. It has changed from an original military fortress to a popular scenic spot today. The identity of the Tower of London is varied, and so are its functions-fortress, royal residence, armory, treasury, mint, observatory, zoo and national prison.
The core building of the whole Tower of London is this square white tower, also known as the Normandy Tower. The word "Normandy" is very familiar to people in China. Yes, it has the same name and place as the famous "Normandy landing" in World War II. How can French place names be associated with English architecture? Because it is really related to French history and the French people.
Britain and France, the two deadly enemies, have been fighting since 1000 years ago-they are constantly fighting and fighting.
"The Tower of London" and an important event in English history are closely related to a Frenchman, who is the famous conqueror William.
1 1 An important event happened on the island of Great Britain in the 20th century, which was called "Norman Conquest" (1066, Northern Song Dynasty) and "a Frenchman sat on the throne of England".
1066, on the French map of the European continent, there is a small but powerful "Normandy Principality". Duke William, the leader of this principality, led a navy to cross the English Channel in a mighty way, demanding to inherit the throne of England (needless to say, the process was brain-burning). Naturally, King Harold, who had just taken office, would not leave it at that. They met in Hastings and started fighting.
Because William has a title in William II, the "Duchy of Normandy", when he becomes king of England, he can't be called William II, but changed his name to "King William I of England".
William can only speak French and can't speak a word of English. His dominance in England is difficult to consolidate.
First of all, he is not of English descent. British nobles simply looked down on him, bullied him for not knowing English, and called him "asshole William" to his face. London is full of restless mobs.
William is very clever. He first solved the problem of bloodline and married Matilda. This woman is plain, only 152cm tall, but she is the seventh generation descendant of Alfred the Great, England. After marriage, she immediately gave birth to William's heir, William II. Since then, all kings in England and England have her and William's genes.
In order to prevent hostile Londoners from making trouble and rebelling, 1087, William had a civil "fortress" at the corner of the Roman wall on the Thames, which was hastily completed and surrounded by high wooden fences. This is the predecessor of the Tower of London, a simple military fortress.
The Tower of London has a history of nearly a thousand years.
William the Conqueror first built the White Pagoda, and later generations built twenty-one pagodas around it, such as the Blood Pagoda, the Salt Pagoda, St. Peter's Church, the Brick Pagoda and the Waterloo Pagoda, and built a heavily guarded Acropolis around the White Pagoda.
Richard Lion Heart first introduced Thames water as the moat of the castle, but failed. Henry III successfully used Dutch moat technology for reference and successfully diverted water. During the Hundred Years' War between Britain and France, "Henry V" promoted the defensive function of this castle to the extreme.
Thousands of years of British blood and tears have shrunk the "Tower of London", and tourists have limited time. It is recommended to focus on the following four towers:
White Tower (with royal equipment exhibition), Blood Tower (full of dark breath of power struggle), Green Tower (famous haunted place), and diamond-encrusted treasure hall.
Wide moat, the Watergate is the only entrance, and the tower is arched. Living in this castle, members of the royal family are safe and reliable.
For a time, the Tower of London was used as a prison by the king, so that later British people understood that the phrase "sent to the tower" meant "imprisonment".
The famous "Elizabeth I" in British history was sent to the Tower of London by Mary I, the king's sister, for more than a year and almost lost her head.
The Tower of London was last used as a prison during World War II, when the third Nazi rudolf hess was held.
Take the subway to the "Tashan" station, and the Tower of London Pass is only a few steps away. It is open all year round, and the opening hours are 9.00- 16.30 (Tuesday to Saturday) and 10.00- 16.30 (Sunday to Monday). This is the only attraction in London that opens at 9 o'clock.
Don't ignore this sculpture on the door. It is the symbol of the British royal family and has rich connotations. There are French proverbs hanging around and at the bottom of the coat of arms, which most people can't understand, but it is this French that connects the Norman Dynasty with William the Conqueror.
The national emblem of the British royal family is quite interesting. If you understand it, it is equivalent to reading half a book about English history.
On the shield emblem at the core of the badge, there are three golden lions on the red ground in the upper left corner and the lower right corner, symbolizing England; In the upper right corner is a red lion standing on the golden ground, symbolizing Scotland; In the lower left corner is the golden harp on the blue ground, symbolizing Ireland.
Outside the coat of arms, on the left is a lion wearing a crown, representing England; On its right is a unicorn similar to a horse, representing Scotland.
There is a motto written around the coat of arms in French, which means "karma". There is a guardian medal hanging at the bottom, and the ribbon also says "God exists, I have rights" in French.
How to use French on the emblem of the British royal family?
Because the history of Britain generally started from the Norman dynasty, the king of this dynasty came from William, Duke of Normandy, France, and the French became the king of England. French is naturally the official language. At that time, British nobles disdained to speak English, which was an inferior language.
Historically, the Tower of London was once a national prison, and only those who committed "treason" were eligible to stay in the tower as prisoners. Usually, they are transported to this gate to enter the Tower of London, so it is called the "traitor gate".
The White Tower is the oldest tower in the Tower of London complex. The stone used in the building comes from William's hometown-Cannes, Normandy, France. After the completion, it was painted white and named "White Pagoda".
Now every floor of the White Pagoda has become an exhibition hall. The first floor shows the armor of instant combat, the second floor shows the armor of the Middle Ages, the top floor is Tudor armory, which contains the large armor worn by Henry VIII, and the basement is the place for annual examination and torture, which is bloody.
The Tudor armory was full of cold weapons.
James II's mask
Armor of King Edward VI of England of England The King of England ascended the throne at the age of 9 and died at the age of 15.
James II's sidearm
Armor and vest for combat.
Former royal residence
The simple king's bedroom can't be compared with the French palace.
Royal afternoon tea
Ivory carving-the virgin Mary
People are indeed animals, longing for places with bloody smell, and even talking about it.
The Blood Tower was built in 1225, originally known as the Garden Tower, and renamed the Blood Tower because in 1674, the workers who renovated the stairs in the tower found the bodies of two children in the masonry, which solved one of the darkest royal unsolved cases in British history.
The animation played here restored the history at that time.
/kloc-in the spring of 0/483, King Edward IV of England of England died of illness and the throne passed to King Edward V of England of England. The little king is only twelve years old this year. According to the king's will, the Duke of Gloucester, brother of Edward IV of England in England and uncle of Edward V of England in England, is the Regent.
The Duke of Gloucester had the intention of usurping the throne, and he had a fierce contest with the English widow Edward IV of England.
When the Duke of Gloucester was away from London, Edward IV of England, the English widow, asked the advisory committee to pass a resolution to arrange her son's coronation ceremony as soon as possible. Unexpectedly, the news leaked, and the Duke of Gloucester took immediate action. On his way to London to be crowned, Edward V of England of England was kidnapped and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Later, Prince Richard, the younger brother of King Edward V of England of England, was also transferred to the Tower of London to serve his sentence. Lord Hastings strongly opposed this and was put in the Tower of London.
One day, Duke Gloucester came to the tower and happened to meet Lord Hastings. Both of them called each other "treacherous". In a rage, Duke Gloucester ordered him to be beheaded. This is the first time that a prisoner has been executed in the Tower of London. This is a purely unexpected beginning.
On July 6th, the Duke of Gloucester crowned Richard and Edward IV of England, two sons of England, as "gone up in smoke".
The famous oil painting "The Prince in the Tower"
After the mysterious disappearance of Edward IV of England's two sons in the Tower of London, the Garden Tower was deeply branded with the words "Bloody Tower".
Many nights, the guards in the tower reported that they saw two children in pajamas near the southwest edge of the castle. Stranger still, they fought back and held hands!
There are historical materials about the murder of two little princes on display.
Rudolf hess (1894- 1987)
The last prisoner of the Bloody Tower was rudolf hess, the third person in Nazi Germany and Hitler's deputy.
Hess is Hitler's diehard brother. He took part in the riot in Munich beer hall initiated by Hitler. He personally guarded the gate with a submachine gun. After the attempted coup, he volunteered to go to prison with Hitler. In prison, Hitler dictated Mein Kampf, and Hess took notes and polished it.
1933, Hitler came to power and appointed Hess as the deputy leader of the Nazi party. At the peak of his power, he made two other inventions: one was to invent the word "Fuehrer", and the other was amazing-long live Hitler (hi! Hitler).
1941may 10, something strange happened. He flew to England to skydive alone. After his arrest, he asked to meet Churchill and talk about his secret mission-peace proposal: allowing Germany to move freely in Europe, while Germany respected the territorial integrity of the British Empire and returned it to the former British colony. As a result, Churchill was detained in the Tower of London. Germany was detained after it surrendered. He was finally sentenced to life imprisonment. 1On August 7th, 987, he committed suicide in Spandau prison in Berlin, and lived to be 93 years old.
Now there are many cells and torture devices on display in the tower, and there are graffiti of prisoners on the wall. When you get on the tower, you will pass through a small hole door. From time to time, the door will make a faint child's voice, which is a bit creepy. Timid people will enter cautiously.
On the left of the White Pagoda is a meadow called Green Pagoda, which is actually a place for beheading. I don't know why the place where people killed people took such a poetic name.
Among the women beheaded here, three are the most famous:
Two queens (Henry VIII's two wives) and one queen (Jane Grey, executed by "bloody Mary"-nicknamed "Queen of Nine Days").
There is a crystal broken stone on the disc at the top of the photo, and the name of the person executed here is recorded on the circular stone tablet below. These names were not written by the museum, but were engraved on Queen Victoria's orders in those years, not to commemorate or miss, but to coldly warn those who covet the throne-beware of losing their heads!
It is said that before 2003, there was a broken stone stained with anne boleyn's blood, which was somehow replaced by a crystal guillotine.
Axe knife used for beheading in the tower more than 400 years ago.
Many bloody and bizarre stories in the Tower of London are related to Henry VIII.
Henry VIII (149 1- 1547), a famous king in English history, gave a brief evaluation: he was well governed and his private life was a mess.
Henry VIII is the most important monarch in Tudor dynasty, and he is also the most interesting monarch with the most stories. During his reign, he incorporated Wales into England, which had a far-reaching impact on later generations. His love was extremely unsuccessful and even tragic.
He has been married six times and has a son and two daughters, both of whom are kings of England. They were called "Edward VI of England of England", "Bloody Mary" and "The Virgin Queen" in history.
Henry VIII's six marriages and the different fates of six queens attracted the creative passion and inspiration of later generations, and various film and television works emerged one after another. The TV series "Tudor Dynasty" described him.
The divorce of Henry VIII caused a sensation in the world and brought a great earthquake to the Catholic Church. In order to divorce his wife, Henry VIII married a new queen, turned against the Pope at that time, established Protestantism, and made the Church of England break away from the Holy See and become the highest religious leader in Britain. He did this at that time, just to achieve the purpose of legally divorcing his wife and marrying a new queen. I didn't expect later generations to put a high hat on him-to carry out religious reform.
It is a family matter for Chinese emperors to change wives. However, during the period when the Holy See ruled Europe, any king's divorce must be reported to the Pope for approval.
Henry VIII's first marriage was a "political marriage". He married his brother's widow, Princess Catherine of Spain, whose royal background was very strong. However, after 20 years of marriage, among the children born to Catherine, only one Princesse Marie (later the famous bloody Mary) survived, and all the others died. Henry was so worried that he had no children that he began to have an affair with his wife's maid, anne boleyn, and secretly married him.
Annie. Although Berlin was the maid of the queen, she was born in a noble family and had a high heart. She refused to play the role of mistress and only accepted a formal marriage. Because the British law of succession stipulates that illegitimate children cannot inherit the throne, Henry decided to apply to the Pope for divorce.
One is the king and the other is the princess of the Spanish royal family. The pope can't afford to offend anyone, and he is in a dilemma. Henry has been delaying Henry's divorce application. Henry was very disappointed. In a rage, he decided to bypass the Pope and handle the divorce himself.
Henry VIII took a series of extreme measures to leave the Vatican. He declared that England would no longer pay taxes to the Vatican, that the judicial power in Britain was independent, and that the king was the supreme head of the Church of England. Since then, the independent Anglican Church was born.
After anne boleyn came to power, she was beheaded after only three years as the queen, and she was called "Anne for a thousand days" in history.
After Catherine was deposed, her daughter Mary lost the title of Princess of Wales. Anne often calls Mary a shameless bastard.
When Anne gave birth to her daughter Elizabeth, Mary became even more unpopular and shabby, and everyone avoided her. Anne even ordered Mary to be Elizabeth's maid.
Mary was obedient on the surface, but she planted the seeds of hatred in her heart, and Elizabeth paid a huge price for it later.
Maybe it's karma. anne boleyn became queen, but his stomach didn't live up to expectations. He has only one daughter. Extremely disappointed, Henry VIII was accused of adultery by the cabinet. Bolin was beheaded after being thrown into the Tower of London, and her daughter Elizabeth became an illegitimate child.
This marriage, which lasted more than 1000 days, ended in tragedy. For details, please see the Oscar-winning film Anne for 1000 days.
1536 may 19, Annie? Bolin was executed and became the first queen to be executed. Anne's last request to her husband Henry VIII was to end her life with a sword, instead of being hacked to death with an axe like Moore and others. Henry agreed and sent someone to France to find the swordsman.
Shortly after her death, someone claimed to have seen her ghost, dressed in a white robe, wandering in the green space and cloisters in the tower.
The divorce case of Henry VIII also implicated the execution of a number of celebrities, bishops and priests, including Thomas Moore, the author of Utopia, who was a powerful and deep Catholic, which doomed the irreconcilable contradiction between Moore and the king. He opposed Henry VIII's divorce, opposed the English Reformation and resigned as a judge, which made Henry VIII extremely disappointed.
Later, Henry VIII asked all his subjects to swear that their marriage with Catherine was invalid and that his marriage with Anne was valid without reservation. Thomas Moore was imprisoned in the Tower of London for treason because he didn't want to take an oath against his conscience, and then he was executed.
The house behind the Green Tower Lawn is the "Queen's House", where anne boleyn and her daughter Elizabeth were held successively.
Anne boleyn was imprisoned in the Tower of London by her husband and Elizabeth was imprisoned in the Tower of London by her half-sister. Her mother died and her daughter survived.
Elizabeth of the Tower
After the death of Henry VIII, his son succeeded to the throne, which was called Edward VI of England in history, but he fell ill and died without colonization. A Duke of Northam in London helped his daughter-in-law (niece of Henry VIII) to ascend to the throne. After nine days as queen, Gray was overthrown by Mary, thrown into the Tower of London and guillotined.
During Mary's reign, she regained her Catholic status, persecuted Protestants, burned many famous Protestant leaders, and was very suspicious of Elizabeth.
Little Elizabeth was very calculating, pretending to be obedient everywhere, not taking part in any political activities, and surviving by wit and disguise until Queen Mary died.
Mary I has been childless since she got married. In the last few months of Mary's life, the relationship between the two sisters eased slightly. Before she died, she reached an agreement with the Spanish ambassador and the Regent's Committee, promising Elizabeth to inherit the throne on the premise that Elizabeth converted to Catholicism, and Elizabeth actually agreed.
Elizabeth I is one of the greatest monarchs in English history. Her 45 years of successful rule made her a queen admired by people. Because she never married, she was called "virgin queen".
Elizabeth I has never been married, but this does not mean that her love life is blank. The queen's love affair is well known, and even in her old age, her romantic enthusiasm remains undiminished.
1587, the queen appointed the Earl of Essex as a squire. This year, the Queen was 53 years old and the Earl of Essex was less than 20 years old. The two are closely related and inseparable. Later, Essex fell out of favor, and the impulsive earl led 300 people to launch a rebellion in London on February 8, 160 1. Surrender after defeat and be imprisoned immediately.
The queen also has a guard captain-Raleigh, who is charming, intelligent and humorous and deeply loved by the queen. However, when Rowley married the Queen without telling her, Elizabeth was very angry and threw Rowley into the Tower of London. He was quickly released and fell out of favor from then on.
This place is worth holding your breath. Many death row prisoners' last words are engraved on the wall of the tower. Their mental state before death can be roughly inferred from the degree of scribbling.
Show instruments of torture with screams. However, compared with the Qing Dynasty, this kind of torture is really nine Niu Yi hairs.
There are about 1700 prisoners in the tower of London, and many celebrities were murdered in the tower. There are too many dead people, too much blood smell, too many strange things, and "haunted" constantly.
In Shakespeare's historical play Henry VI, the Scottish king was arrested twice in the struggle against Edward IV of England of England who usurped the throne, and Edward IV of England of England ordered him to be sent to the Tower of London. "Into the tower of London? What is the Tower of London? Elizabethan audiences all know what the subtext of this sentence means.
The Treasure Hall, located in the basement of Waterloo Barracks, is the most popular, and the jewels in the crown are dazzling.
The treasure house contains the crowns and scepters of the British royal family, the most striking of which are the imperial crown embedded with jewels and the Indian crown. Every king and queen of England has passed through it, but it has no insurance and needs to be guarded.
Currently, there are about forty guards. These guards wear crimson uniforms and tall bearskin hats, patrolling the yard day and night, and carrying automatic rifles at night, questioning everyone's password; And every night at 10, we have a handover ceremony that has been preserved for more than 700 years:
"Stop! Password? 」
"Key"
"Whose key? 」
"The key to Queen Elizabeth"
This small gold-plated spoon has a history of more than 800 years and was used to scoop water at the coronation ceremony of the king.
A beautifully decorated cannon
Farmers, warders and crows
Walking into the Tower of London, many tourists' eyes are attracted by people wearing traditional Tudor uniforms, which instantly makes people feel back in time. These people naturally become the object of tourists competing to take pictures.
These people are called yeomen warders, commonly known as beef eaters. During the Tudor dynasty, they assumed the role of Royal Guards, so they were well paid and usually had beef to eat.
Now they are also called yeoman warders. Their identities and roles are very different. They are both tour guides, security guards and actors. They will show tourists around the Tower of London at a fixed time.
Nowadays, if you want to be a farmer's jailer, the threshold is very high. You must serve in Her Majesty's army for at least 22 years and be awarded the rank of first-class warrant officer.
Farmers, warders and crows
"Crow" is a kind of big crow in the Tower of London, and its status is unusual. Crows here have been kept by special personnel since about17th century. In order to prevent ravens from flying out of the Tower of London, the breeders tampered with the wings of each raven, so now people call the raven the "last prisoner" of the Tower of London.
Yeoman jailer
The yeoman jailer is old, full of pride, with Hong Zhong-like voice and professionalism.
There is a free tour in front of the traitor's gate every half hour. Students with good English can enjoy Yeoman waddell's full sense of humor.
Only by filling in the form around the deeds of "Taiping Army fought against foreign guns", "Left Recovering Xinjiang", "Deng Shichang's deeds" and "Boxer Rebellion agains