ll the great edifice grew up, and
Gundulf, who lived to the age of fourscore, saw his great keep completed
from basement to battlement.

Henry the Third, a prince of epical fancies as Corffe, Conway, Beaumaris
and many other fine poems in stone attest, not only spent much of his
money in adding to its beauty and strength, ... but was his own chief
clerk of the works. The Water Gate, the embanked wharf, the Cradle Tower,
the Lantern, which he made his bedroom and private closet, the Galleyman
Tower, and the first wall appear to have been his gifts. But the prince
who did so much for Westminster Abbey, not content with giving stone and
piles to the home in which he dwelt, enriched the chambers with frescoes
and sculptures, the chapels with carving and glass, making St. John's
Chapel in the White Tower splendid with saints, St. Peter's Church on the
Tower Green musical with bells. In the Hall Tower, from which a passage
led through the Great Hall into the King's bedroom in the Lantern, he
built a tiny chapel for his private use--a chapel which served for the
devotions of his successors until Henry the Sixth was stabbed to death
before the cross. Sparing neither skill nor gold to make the great
fortress worthy of his art, he sent to Purbeck for marble and to Caen for
stone. The dabs of lime, the spawls of flint, the layers of brick which
deface the walls and towers in too many places are of either earlier or
later times. The marble shafts, the noble groins, the delicate traceries,
are Henry's work. Traitor's Gate was built by him. In short, nearly all
that is purest in art is traceable to his reign.

Edward the First may be added, at a distance, to the list of builders. In
his reign the original Church of St. Peter's fell into ruin; the wrecks
were carted away, and the present edifice was built. The bill of costs for
clearing the ground is still extant in Fetter Lane. Twelve men, who were
paid twopence a day wages, were employed on the work for twenty days. The
cost of pulling down the old chapel was forty-six shillings and eight
pence; that of digging foundations for the new chapel forty shillings.
That chapel has suffered from wardens and lieutenants; yet the shell is of
very fine Norman work.

From the days of Henry the builder down to those of Henry of Richmond the
Tower, as the strongest place in the south of England, was by turns the
magnificent home and the miserable jail of all our princes. Here Richard
the Second