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London and Environs
Tower of
London - Tower Hill
 Tower Hill is an
elevated spot outside the Tower of London and just outside the limits of
the City of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
Belonging to one of the oldest parts of London, archeological evidence
shows that there was a settlement on the hill in the Bronze Age. Much
later Boadica burnt down the Roman village that had replaced it.
Tower Hill stands to the north west of the Tower Of London. Over one
hundred and twenty prisoners were killed on the Tower Hill site, most by
beheading which was considered the most honorable way to die there. For
the best known of the condemned thousands would gather to watch the
“festivities”. Those of lower status faced less dignified deaths and could
expect hanging, and/or drawing and quartering, sometimes on the Hill,
sometimes at Tyburn (near the site of Marble Arch today). Some were burned
as heretics, and others hanged as common criminals, as were the last to be
killed on the Hill in 1780.
Some executed at Tower Hill include:
King Baliol of Scotland (1296)
William Wallace (1305)
John Fisher Bishop of Rochester (1534)
Sir Thomas More (1535)
Implicated with Anne Boleyn (1536)
- Mark Smeaton
-Sir Henry Norris
-George Boleyn
-Sir Francis Weston
-William Brereton
Thomas Cromwell (1540)
Implicated with Catherine Howard (1542)
-Thomas Culpepper
-Henry Mannox
-Francis Dereham
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1546)
Thomas, Duke of Norfolk (1546)
Thomas Seymour, High Admiral of England (1549)
Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector (1552)
Guildford Dudley - husband of Lady Jane Grey (1554)
Guy Fawkes (1606)
Thomas Overbury (1613)
Sir Walter Raleigh - first imprisoned for 13 years, then released, but
eventually executed (1618)
Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford (1641)
James Scott, Duke of Monmouth (1685)
Roger Casement
Corporal Josef Jakobs
Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, 1747, who was the last person beheaded in
England.
 While most people, and
far too many websites, think that executions were generally held within
the Tower of London, the truth is only a few were ever killed within the
confines of the Tower itself. Only exceptional circumstances called for
executions to be held in the Tower, all others were actually on Tower Hill
(or Tyburn as stated above).
There is a park and memorial on the Tower Hill execution spot today, with
plaques listing the names of some of those executed there.
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