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TOWER OF LONDON.

THE Tower of London has been employed, from the Norman Conquest to the present time, as a royal fortress; and every part of its history, for a period of more than seven hundred years, is in a greater or less degree connected with the laws and government of the country. It was originally raised to serve the purposes of despotism, and, in succeeding ages, has been alternately applied to public security and private oppression.

William the Conqueror, when he had obtained possession of the city of London, erected a fortress on part of the present site of the Tower, with a view to controul and intimidate the citizens of his new capital. The same policy induced him to erect castles in the several provinces of his conquests. About twelve years after, in 1078, he caused a larger building to be constructed on the site of the first fortress, which is now known by the name of the White Tower. It was built under the direction of that great military architect, Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester, after whose design the castle of that city was also raised. It has been sometimes been called Cæsar's Tower, from an absurd tradition that it was built by Julius Cæsar. It has been called, by Fitzstephen, with much more propriety, Arx Palatina, from the high dignity with which the governor was invested. By the ravages of a tempest, in the year 1092, this structure received such material injury, as to render reparations necessary, which were begun by William Rufus, and completed by Henry I. New walls were then raised round it, and bastions were constructed on the shore of the Thames, with the Traitors, or the Bloody Gate, through which the state prisoners were conveyed to their confinement. According to Baker's Chronicle, in the reign of Richard I. the Chancellor, William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, surround

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