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10 stops · about 1.3 km on foot · London, United Kingdom

Dark history around Tower of London, London (part 1)

Follow the stops in order. Each is a documented story set at or near this spot.

Open the walking route in Maps See it on the Dark Atlas

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  1. Start · Southwark, London · 1569

    Bloody Bonner's Decade of Rot

    The bishop who sent heretics to the flames spent his last nine years a prisoner in the Marshalsea, and was buried secretly at midnight.

  2. 583 m on · Pudding Lane, London · 1666

    The Baker Blamed For Burning London

    A fire that destroys 13,000 houses needs someone to blame, and a simple-minded Frenchman gives London exactly what it wants.

  3. 506 m on · Tower Hill, London · 1510

    The Lawyers Beheaded to Win a Young King Popularity

    Edmund Dudley and Richard Empson squeezed England for Henry VII's treasury. When Henry VIII took the throne, both were charged with constructive treason and beheaded on Tower Hill in August 1510.

  4. same spot · Tower Hill, London · 1662

    The Governor Whose Last Words Were Drowned by Trumpets

    Sir Henry Vane the Younger governed Massachusetts at 23, then lost his head on Tower Hill. As he began his scaffold speech, trumpets and drums sounded to stop the crowd hearing it.

  5. 127 m on · Tower Green, London · 1542

    The Madness That Could Not Save Her

    English law forbade executing the insane, so the King rewrote the law to make sure it would not save her.

  6. same spot · Tower Green, Tower of London, London · 1601

    The Executioner He Made, the Axe That Took Him

    The man who spared a convicted rapist to make him London's hangman met that same executioner on his own scaffold.

  7. same spot · Tower of London, London · 1499

    Fourteen Years in the Tower for His Bloodline

    Locked away as a boy for the crime of his birth, he emerged so isolated he could no longer recognize an animal.

  8. same spot · Tower of London, London · 1244

    The Welsh Prince Who Fell From the Tower of London

    Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, eldest son of Llywelyn the Great, was passed over by his father, jailed by his brother and held by Henry III. In 1244 he tried to climb out of the Tower on a rope of linen.

  9. same spot · Tower of London, London · 1613

    Poisoned in the Tower Over a Marriage

    Imprisoned on a diplomatic post designed to fail, he died slowly of a poison that took months to finish the job.

  10. same spot · London · 1381

    The Archbishop's Head That Still Survives

    A raging mob hacked the Archbishop of Canterbury to death, and his mummified head still sits in a Suffolk church today.

Coordinates mark the place of each story, and some are approximate. Check opening times and access before you go.