The Traitors' Gate is an entrance through which many prisoners of the

Tudors The House of Tudor was a royal house of largely Welsh and English origin that held the English throne from 1485 to 1603. They descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd and Catherine of France. Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and its ...

arrived at the

Tower of London The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is sep ...

. The gate was built by

Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vas ...

, to provide a water gate entrance to the Tower, part of St. Thomas' Tower, which was designed to provide additional accommodation for the

royal family A royal family is the immediate family of kings/queens, emirs/emiras, sultans/ sultanas, or raja/ rani and sometimes their extended family. The term imperial family appropriately describes the family of an emperor or empress, and the term pa ...

. In the pool behind Traitors' Gate was an engine that was used for raising water to a cistern on the roof of the White Tower. The engine worked originally by the force of the tide or by horsepower and eventually by steam. In 1724–1726, it was adapted to drive machinery for boring gun barrels. It was removed in early 1866. The name Traitors' Gate has been used since before 1543, when that name is used on

Anton van den Wyngaerde Anton van den Wyngaerde ( Span.: ''Antonio de las Viñas''; 1525 – 7 May 1571) was a prolific Flemish topographical artist who made panoramic sketches and paintings of towns in the southern Netherlands, northern France, England, Italy, and ...

panorama of London The city of London has long been a subject for panoramas by artists, mapmakers, and topographers. Many of their works have this as their title. History The earliest topographical drawings preceded maps according to modern definition, although they ...

. Prisoners were brought by barge along the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

, passing under

London Bridge Several bridges named London Bridge have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It re ...

, where the heads of recently executed prisoners were displayed on spikes. Notable prisoners such as

Sir Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lor ...

entered the Tower by Traitors' Gate. Although

Queen Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn (; 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and of her execution by beheading for treason and other charges made her a key f ...

is often reported to have passed through the Traitors' Gate after her arrest, the contemporary

chronicle A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and ...

of Charles Wriothesley "court gate" (in the ).

References

External links

* Gates in England Tower of London {{UK-hist-stub