I think I am too sensitive for London; my little heart goes pitter patter; The British want your liver on a platter.

The Tower of London was quite beautiful, but it gave me a very strange feeling. I consider myself a woman with semi strict values and walking into a torture chamber and prison area felt odd. It gave me the same feeling after I left the 9/11 museum in New York. Emotionally confused. The most jarring piece of history I learned from this museum was in the Beauchamp Tower. Alice Tinkerville was accused of piracy under the rule of Henry VIII and was sentenced to prison inside the Tower. She was there for a while until she and her guard fell in love, and she convinced him to help her escape. In doing so, they were caught by the other guards on watch as they climbed out her tower window. The guard was tortured and executed first and then Alice was sentenced to a torturous execution as well. She was hung by her wrist above the river Thames in a shallow area of water so when the tide rose, she would slowly be drowned by the crashing waves. How awful, right?  

Another thing that made me feel very weird inside was the raven’s cage. There is no need to have five to seven ravens that can extend their wings to the size of a fourth grader to be stuck inside a cage. I personally do not like any animals being caged. Domestic or exotic. That is not their purpose. Those birds need to fly and all they can do is flap two flaps from one wooden pole to the next. It hurt my little overly sensitive heart. All for the superstition that the monarchy does not fall? I am not buying it; that was just dumb. Thank you, next.  

The funniest bit of information I learned was that the Earl of Nithsdale also tried to escape the Tower in 1716 and was successful by dressing in the maids’ women’s clothing. This was celebrated by his town and home and his timely escape was just the day before he was to be executed. I counted a total of 22 executions inside the Tower’s walls and it was also listed that over 100 other executions happened on the hill outside the Tower for the public’s entertainment. And finally, my most favorite part of our museum experience was watching the actors interact with all the students. I followed a couple of young school groups who were being led on an adventure by the said actors. There were specifically these two little girls and their father that I followed and watched them solve a mystery of finding the right key to a box that sat in front of the building that the crown jewels were in. They received a letter from another actor in a long red coat and a very long brown and luscious curly wig that led them to a prison chamber where they interacted with a woman who was begging for bread in exchange for her keys. These girls did ultimately get their key and run back to the luscious red coat man, but sadly my time was up for touring before I got to see what was inside the box. Overall, my rating of the Tower of London was a 7/10. -1 for the crown jewel line being so long, another -1 for me stepping inside a prison and #abolishtheprisonsystem, and finally my last -1 is for my poor ravens. Maybe I’ll unlock the cage; cause some chaos for Mr. Charles. See the empire fall 🙂