During this century the river was constantly seeing changes in the old landmarks on its banks. Henry III. made great alterations in the Tower of London, considerably enlarging its precincts, and adding another wall, with towers, to the original fortress, as built by the first Norman King.
This gave great annoyance to the citizens, who saw in it a deliberate attempt to overawe them and to infringe upon their cherished freedom and privileges.
In the year 1190 the old eastern wall of the city, from the postern gate to the river, had been removed by the then Chancellor, Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, for the enlarging of the Tower.
Stow says he "enclosed the tower and castle of London with an outward wall of stone embattled, and also caused a deep ditch to be cast about the same, thinking to have environed it with the river."
But the Tower, with its inner and outer bailey and ditch, was not completed until afterwards - during the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I. It was always looked upon by the citizens as a standing menace.
Between the White Tower and the river, Henry III. built a new royal lodging and a great Hall, and gave the very popular name of St. Thomas to the Watergate.
In excavations for the foundations of that ugly redbrick monstrosity erected by the War Office for a guardhouse, some interesting remains were found - a Roman hypocaust and walls and an ancient subway leading from the White Tower to the moat.
There had always been a tradition that a subway existed, and that it went under the Thames; but its extension in that direction was manifestly impossible, and it probably led only as far as the moat.
Stow's evidence about the city wall being destroyed to make way for the Tower was, however, confirmed by the existence of a fragment precisely similar in construction and thickness to that in Postern Row, at the southeast angle of the White Tower. In Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower's Tower of London these fragments are illustrated.
Henry the Third's detailed directions for the painting and decoration of the Royal apartments show that they were frequently occupied, the older apartments in the White Tower being abandoned for the new on the south and east sides.
Journeys between the Tower and Westminster must have been frequent, and the Royal barges must have been pretty familiar to the Londoners in those days. Nor were they always very polite to the occupants.
It is recorded that Queen Eleanor, the wife of Henry III., leaving the Tower by barge to go to Windsor and attempting to get through the bridge, was pelted by the mob with stones and filth, and some of her suite were hurt.
The Queen was very unpopular, as many of her relations held important positions at Court, and her uncle Boniface, Archbishop of Canterbury, was particularly obnoxious both to the clergy and laity.
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