Torture at the Tower of London

Historic Royal Palaces Podcast

Historic Royal Palaces

London, Palace, Tower, Historic, Conservation, Royal, Lecture, Learning, Kensington, Hampton, Kew, Banqueting, History, Court, Of, House, Palaces

4.6 • 635 Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Tower of London is almost synonymous with the idea of torture, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries. When we think of this iconic historic site, the history of violence is one of the first things to come to mind, yet to what extent is this a fabrication of history?

In this episode, Dr Catherine Jenkinson from the University of Oxford talks us through one of the latest research projects at Historic Royal Palaces, the question of how the history of torture is, and should be told at the Tower of London.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello listeners. Before we get into this week's episode, we want you to help us out.
0:09.0	We're running a quick survey and we'd love it if you could tell us what you like about our podcasts and more of what you want to listen to.
0:16.0	You'll even be in for a chance to win a £100 voucher. Head to the link in our show nights to find out more.
0:22.5	Now, back to the episode.
0:29.5	Hello and welcome back to the Historic Royal Palaces podcast.
0:34.0	For this episode, we're jumping into a rather gruesome and horrible history of the Tower of London,
0:39.6	that of torture, imprisonment, and even execution.
0:43.8	The Tower has become an enduring representation of this grizzly history, with tales from the
0:49.0	16th and 17th centuries persuading us that no other place was as feared as a symbol for violence and
0:55.7	punishment. But are the myths about the tower and torture more intriguing than the history
1:00.7	itself? Let's find out. Please be aware that this episode may contain some themes that listeners might find upsetting.
1:21.3	I'm standing here inside the Tower of London on an early morning in January and I'm looking around and sort of taken
1:30.0	it back because usually when I'm here there are hundreds or maybe thousands of people
1:34.5	walking around and I'm struck by the people from all parts of the world and children running
1:40.0	around and the delight in people's eyes but this this morning it's quiet. There's only a person
1:46.0	walking here and there, and it's a sort of gray, drizzly morning, the sort that really gives
1:52.9	you an evocative sense of what it must have been like in the tower hundreds of years ago
1:57.1	when it was frequently housing state prisoners of huge importance to the Elizabethan
2:03.6	state or the Jacobian state or any number of other periods in English history.
2:08.6	But it actually feels quite jarring and almost chilling to be here, even though I can see
2:16.6	the day beginning and people starting
2:19.3	their day across London, and yet there's something really dark and kind of gloomy this
	...

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