Tower Tales and Traitors
this exhibition has now ended.
Our summer exhibition tells the tales of the Tower of London’s most notorious occupants.
Over the years this great fortress has been used as a royal palace, a storehouse for weaponry, the royal mint, menagerie, royal jewel house, an observatory and, perhaps most famously, a prison. Today it attracts visitors from around the world and houses stunning objects from the Royal Armouries collection.
TREASON
One of the uses of the Tower was as a state prison for men and women accused of treason. Offences included:
- trying to kill or depose the king or queen
- helping rebels or foreign enemies
- writing or speaking against the king or queen
- Henry VIII even considered adultery or cuckoldry (against himself) a treasonable offence and two of his wives were executed for such reasons.
People who commit treason are called TRAITORS.
Traitors held in the Tower of London have included kings, queens, lords, ladies and ordinary citizens. You may recognise some of their names: Anne Boleyn, Sir Walter Raleigh, Guy Fawkes…
Many traitors only left the Tower to go to their execution.
Visit this exhibition to discover tales from the Tower and of the traitors once held within its walls. Discover who tried to escape, who was executed, and who managed to survive.
