Doomed to Fail - Ep 157: Beheading the Myths - The Tower of London

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Today, we go back across the pond to talk about the Tower of London - not technically a tower if you're looking for something tall, more of a complex with a COMPLEX history (lol). We'll talk about when our dear Anne Boelyn was killed, when Rudolph Hess was held there, and everything in between! Grab your umbrellas (We assume it's always raining there) and learn with us!  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortonthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. And we are back on a presumably happy sunny day in December. Woo-hoo. Gosh, I can't believe it's in December. I know that's supposed to be good to be like, time, blah, blah, blah. But like, man, what a ride.

yeah do you feel like the older you're getting the less the quicker it's happening i do but i feel like every time i look at the calendar i'm like god it's the same fucking stuff every year you know like i have to do thanksgiving and i have to do christmas and then january starts and we're going to do girls got cookies and then baseball starts and then it's summer and then i'm like it's just never it's same thing every year never ends we'll die soon enough taylor it'll be fun yes everything is fine hello everyone welcome to june just to fail with a project that brings you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures twice a week every week I am Taylor joined by Fars on Monday we talked about Niagara Falls and now it's far as a turn to tell us

the story as far as a turn so um I am going to do a slight continuation of medieval history by talking about the tower of London yay not a tower well I mean it has towers but it's not itself a tower yes so one thing I found like one thing I was like thinking about as I was like doing this research is that there's so much history that's like not there because like people just didn't document shit like there was nobody could read nobody could write there was no place to put things there's no libraries to put them in live would like withstand the test of time all these places that are like of world historical significance got shelled into oblivion during world war one and two or to the many conquests of, like, mankind.

And I think Go ahead. No, we talk about that. And I think that we're wrong to think, I've said this before, that our history is going to be forever, you know? Yeah, but no, I would never, I would never assume that.

I mean, think about, like, even the stuff that, like, right now we think is well documented, is digitized in a way that, like, I don't know, in like a thousand years, there might not be any concept of computers. Maybe everything's just stored in rainwaves. Exactly.

Yeah. It's not reverse compatibility. the way that my PS5 games aren't reverse compatible with PS4. Exactly. Same thing. It's just like that. So going into the history of the Tower of London. So let's start with London itself.

I learned so much. Oh, my God, I'm so excited. But you've not been to London. You've been to the airport, but you haven't been there. I've never been outside of the airports. Yeah. I've been there twice. I stayed there for two weeks in grad school.

It was so fun. I'm sure. I'm sure I would love to. go. I love to go. It seems like a really fun city. So London's really interesting. There's so much infighting between groups and groups

are so poorly defined in this time that that's like one of my key takeaways. So probably, okay, so here's like a brief super bridge version of like how London became like London. So prior to

1066, Anglo-Saxons ruled the territory that has now known as London. And I never knew this, but Anglo-Saxon is like a whole breed of people. What are you talking about? 1066 was a Battle of Hastings. We know that.

I'm going to get into that. I'm going to talk about it. Yeah. So prior to 10- Yeah, that's what all this happened. So yes. So prior to 1066, Anglo-Saxons rule the territory known as London. England as a whole was basically broken up between different factions and

Anglo-Saxons and Normans or people with roots in Normandy didn't get along and that's like kind of how london happened so mostly this had to do with what i'd argue or basically minor and inconsequential details that cause them to fight it's so interesting any any human who is slightly different than any other human will find a way to hate that human it's just it's just ingrained in our DNA like we'll never outrun this thing um we just watch Independence Day 2, which was not terrible. It's kind of fun. But they were like, we had 20 years apiece. It was like the only way we'd have that as if aliens came down and tried to kill

everyone. Even then, I don't think we could do it. Yeah. Even then we'd find a way to fight each other. Yeah. The distinctions I found between Anglo-Saxons and Normans was like Anglo-Saxons that are roots were more in Germanic cultures. Normans were more in Viking cultures. Anglo-Saxons were pagans and Normans were Christians. Anglo-Saxons actually spoke old English, whereas Normans spoke Old Norman, which is a precursor of modern French.

It's like, yeah, you're in different places. You're different. That's how it goes. That's how we are as humans. And then they're like, go after and we cut their heads off. It's like incredible. So for these reasons, the Duke of Normandy, this guy named William the Conqueror,

was running around England in 1066 jacking up Anglo-Saxons and asserting his authority. So as you asserted in November of 1066, he made his way into London after winning the Battle of Hastings, which was the one big battle between Normans and Anglo-Saxons or the Anglo-Saxon king at the time. And that kind of set the stage for everything that comes after this.

That is doomed to fell episode 39 was the Battle of Hastings. There you go. Did you go into what happened after the formation of London? I don't think so. Okay. Great. Then we call us part two of that one. so by the time he ended up getting to London

a new this poor kid some teenage kid king named Edgar was crowned or poor Edgar and like at this point the Anglo-Saxon army is completely decimated so from what I can gather when the conquered just kind of marched on into London

and this poor kid they put in charge just told him he can have it which makes sense I wouldn't I wouldn't fight I'd be like you're good take it dude let me leave with my skin yeah so William the Conqueror he is coordinated as king in December of 1066 surely thereafter he did basically what kings do and he decided to build like a super impressive castle for himself he started building the white tower which was built right on the river Thames Thames Thames Thames Thames Thames Thames Thames it was meant to be his

residence as well as fortification from potential invaders. It was not an impressive building by modern standards. It was about 50,000 square feet across four levels. It had a basement which was for storage, a dungeon spaces. A main floor, which was the residence,

the upper floor, which is the living quarters, and the top floor was used by guards. It was pretty chill. Like, it wasn't like a blow your socks off kind of a place. For about 200 years, it would remain, it would maintain its use as a royal residence and mostly maintain its appearance

and structure. But over time, new rulers would take it over and make additions or changes. Most of these changes weren't keeping with shifting away from being a royal residence and it being used more for matters of state. And the construction going on outside would reflect this. Nearly 300 or so years after it was built, monarchs would build the Westminster Palace, Windsor Castle, and Hampton Court Palace. And they would use those as their primary residences. Again, at this point, it would become more of a ceremonial place to take, you know, heads of state for things. When it was first built, the grounds for the white tower was about one acre, tiny, right? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

200 years later, it's up to six acres. A stone wall was put up and stone towers were constructed for better observation of the River Thames. A hundred years later, the grounds increased by doubled to 12 acres. a moat was added and the outer wall was expanded a chapel was built and a fun little gateway was put in called the Traders Gate

which was installed for prisoners being brought in from the river like Trader like not Trader Joe's Trader like you betrayed me. You betrayed me. Yeah. Yeah.

They took that kind of Trader stuff pretty seriously in Old England. Yeah. And so they needed the executioners. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Which we're going to get into actually.

So in the 14th century, more towers were constructed with such socially acceptable names as Bloody Tower. Barracks, armories, and the residences for high-profile prisoners were also added. And in the 16th centuries, when

all pretense that this thing had been used for anything other than creating misery for the local population was dropped, and it basically became a prison along with some other state functions. Like, it was a mint, for example. Like, it did stuff like that. by this point it expanded from the original one acre i mentioned earlier as the white tower to

18 acres into what is now known as the tower of london so and it's again it's not like what you were saying earlier like it's not a tower it's a complex right i first when you think of a tower i think of like the leading tower of pisa which is like actually a tower you know yeah no this is like this this is like um remember when um in game of thrones reek went to his like uncle and said you should just give up for ramsie or whatever and just quit and he'll let you guys be fine and then he let them in and then they like killed them and skin them sure this is what that whole vibe is not good so between 1540 and 1640 that was like the most active period for when it was a prison the living experience of prisoners

here like very quite dramatically depending on who the prisoner was and what they were charged of so high status inmates who were royalty of some kind they were kept in like nice quarters they would have like private quarters they would have servants a lot of times they were able to purchase their own food and stuff like they had like a pretty chill life by most standards but then some were some people were kept in what we had picture as like a medieval prison like damp cold dark filled with rats and disease there was an area in the basement that was known as Little Ease, which was filled with these four square foot rooms for prisoners where they would be kept in solitary confinement.

And you wouldn't be able to sleep or sit in these rooms that were so small. It sounds horrible. That sounds terrible. The Nazis did this too. I remember hearing that some of the camps had this in there too. Remember in like the first or second Game of Thrones where Peter Dinklage is in that thing where he's like in the cell, but it's like outside and it's. like turned and he's like if he falls asleep he'll roll into the into a lake no it's like very scary

yeah they found really creative ways to torture people yeah so it seems like to me that the flip from catholicism to protestant played a pretty heavy use in torture and misery being escalated at the tower of london because a lot of the people well there's a lot of famous people that ended up there of being tortured and killed. But a lot of people seem like they just, like, weren't accepting of the Protestant faith. And that was why they were there. They were like heretics. And they were like still Catholics.

And again, it's like, dude, you're not that different. Like, just get along with them. Like, it's fine. Well, I just confirmed, but Anne Boleyn was killed there. I know. I'm going to get into it. Okay. Cool.

Which you got into, which I'm going to reference your episode as well. God, that's so exciting for us. Yeah, it all comes full circle. so the rack was a popular device used for torture that's basically the thing where you lay on your back and then they strap things to your arms and legs just kind of pull you apart and destroy your body there's another fun one called the scavenger's daughter yeah so this I don't know what that means but I'm nervous so this was a metal a frame looking contraption that they would put your neck in on the top part of it like the peak of the A for example they would put you your hands in the middle section and your feet in the bottom section there'd be like a corkscrew looking thing at the end of it and they just twist this to basically do the opposite of a rack and compress your body into itself apparently it was supposed to be really really bad especially after your muscles joints and everything else was torn to shreds doing this was particularly

painful so yeah and then obviously like all the rest of the beddings hangings all we we cover this next few short episode go listen to that one but like yeah we they they developed a lot of horrible stuff here. Obviously, the locals hated the Tower of London. It had this foreboding quality to it. And originally, it just had a, it was a symbol of royal access compared to the lives of daily Londoners, which was horrible. Like living in London, like the medieval era, you just went, you went through the black death, you went through, everything was hard and horrible. And every now and then, which was kind of interesting, as they would expand it, they would also take over parts of the neighborhood that were used for.

for people and they just destroy it and take it for themselves. So that was... Tell it's time. Yeah. So it's, this part's interesting. So throughout its history, only 22 people were ever executed at the Tower of

London. But that's because most executions needed to happen in public. So the public was terrified of the crown. Yeah, that makes sense. So a section outside of the Tower Grounds was known as Tower Hill. There's at least 120 executions that have

happened here, but that's just what was documented. And again, a lot of this stuff wasn't well documented. The state didn't want, you know, they wanted you to see it, but they didn't want to have a historical record of what they did. They just wanted you to be terrified of them. So given his reputation, I can only assume that there was a lot more than 120 executions that happened here, but, you know, well, that's what the, that's what the record currently shows.

Right. And I'm sure people, like, died in the freaking vault or whatever. you know yeah well yeah which we'll get into okay yeah a lot of again a lot of the search just wasn't documented which like a really high profile one is one that i'll go into here in a second over time the tower of london became mostly ceremonial and served as the headquarters for the british military they would still hold prisoners there but it became less common and mostly reserved for high profile criminals the last prisoner of state this is absolutely incredible if you've been ignoring me this whole time pay attention to this

people like turn turn the audio up the last prisoner of the state to be held here was rudolph hess well ralph hess was deputy to adolf hitler and towards like the when when the war war war two started heating up he basically got isolated from the decision-making process was like okay rudolph you're over there like yes you have duties and whatever but like we don't need you from military stuff this is insane side story but there was some intermediaries between Rudolf Hess and the King of England. There was like Duke whatever

of who gives a shit, right? So Hess heard that through his intermediaries that the King of England King George wanted to remove Churchill from his role in favor of conceding the war to Hitler. That's what he heard.

Hess then wrote a letter to some random Duke that this intermediary knew and told him that he wrote a letter to the king handed it off this duke saying hey i plan to fly to england and negotiate a peace with you without telling hitler this is real history that actually happened i know so this guy trained himself how to fly a fighter jet or fighter plane and flew from Germany to meet this Duke in Scotland

so he can start the peace negotiations with King George of England. So the best part of this is that after he took off, he had his underlings deliver a letter describing his plan to Hitler. And Hitler, just like, when you read this account of this, you can hear him like slapping his forehead, being like, oh, my God, what an idiot. It's like, what a fuck. he spread news to the media that Hess was insane

and experiencing a nervous breakdown and told his staff to shoot him onside if he ever comes back Winston Churchill after the fact this is amazing after the fact he would describe Hess's plan as one of quote lunatic benevolence unquote like he sounded almost shocked that anyone in a position that Hess had attained in life would ever think that this plan would

work like he was basically describing i wrote down it sounded like he was churchill was describing him as like a golden retriever trying to like get in between two brisly bears fighting over salmon it was like dude this is not going to work but i think we talked about this before because i'm looking up pictures of rudolph hess and i know i've recently looked at the picture of him as an old man and i was like i can't believe he got to be an old man you know yeah 93 93 what so what happened here's what happened it's all true hess boarded this jet this plane he flew into Scotland and then he started running low on fumes and he ejected from his plane the plane crash landed

he was fiddling around with his parachute when some farmers just saw him was like what are you saying what what language is this and took him back to his cottage and then phone the police from there the police reached out to the military and then everybody descended on this cottage and what was he wearing I don't know actually I wish I'd be so funny if it was wearing his SS uniform I feel like he probably was so from there he meets with all these officials

in the military and he starts telling them that listen I have a plan to negotiate a peace treaty you got to let Hitler have Europe and then I think we'll be good and they're like no you're not going to do this it's incredible

no that's literally the thing that we're fighting for well he was like listen she'll let you keep England just give him the rest of Europe and then you'll be fine we're not doing that so eventually he was transferred to the Tower

of London for a few days before going to a different prison and staying there until the Nurebrook trials where he was given a life sentence ultimately he would die in some other prison in 93 years old by suicide in 1987 some say it wasn't suicide most prevailing historians say it was suicide

doesn't really matter what's interesting is that the last execution of the Tower of London in the 1940s was also a german a guy named joseph jacobs who again flew from germany into ally territory parachuted out broke his ankles in the process and was immediately discovered his sentence was fast there was like he had no strategic value whatsoever they just like took him in the back and charmed in the head yeah they're like just kill him on site so that's what well they didn't kill on site they killed him at the tower of london uh by firing squad so

other famous deaths worth calling out here as you mentioned are fifth episode Taylor you covered Anne Boleyn so she was obviously killed here as well as Guy Fox who tried to lead a revolt against the king and was sentenced to drawing and quartering what's interesting here is that he actually never got

to the end part of his execution because during the hanging part after they put the rope around his neck he actually jumped breaking his neck because he was like I don't want the rest of this just kill me fast and so he did that then there's the story of the princes in the tower not the princess in the tower it's the princes male two males two princes yes and that's like a really famous english story which like

i wasn't aware of did you know about this i did yeah okay tell you more so it's relatively quick synopsis but these are the two sons these the princes are two sons Edward the fifth age 12 and Richard, age nine, whose father was King Edward the 4th and died in 1483. So in theory, Edward V was to be king, but given the fact that he was 12 years old at the time, his uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was named the Lord Protector. So plans for Edward's coronation were underway while Edward stayed at the Tower of London, which was where you did. The monarch, during this time of the 1400s, the monarch stays in the Tower of London

in the residence that are waiting for their coronation. About a month later While planning was still underway for this coronation His brother Richard also joined him in the tower And the uncle decided after this to postpone the coronation It sounds like the uncle was doing like stuff behind the scenes Because it was around this time that Parliament passed a law called Titulus Regis

Which stated that Edwards claimed the throne was illegitimate Because his father, Edward IV, the previous king had pre-contracted to marry a different woman which based on whatever interpretation this is means that the new king was illegitimate and a bastard so he couldn't be the king. So he literally passed a law to skip the rightful king this 12 year old little boy

so that he could go to his uncle. So that basically that laid the groundwork for his uncle to ascend to the throne and then the two brothers were never seen again. Never seen again. Again like this is not a death that's counted as an execution but like they just that was it I feel like

it is like even recently they found evidence of them or something it's still a mystery is that true yeah so it's still a mystery they did find bones

consistent with a 12 and a 9 year old deep in the grounds in the Tower of London but what they said was whatever it is like the strata of earth they found them in

was in line with the era in which the Romans ran London is they're like they would never been buried that deep probably

so we probably just found these kids that were here when the Romans rolled London and they died and their bones were here but yeah there was some talk of other bones being found

like in 2012 or something and DNA testing being done on them I don't know if that ever it never had well I don't know if that happened but I know that we still don't know where their bodies are yeah

so today the Tower of London is the most popular tourist attraction in England actually and it houses the crown jewels it serves as a historic site I was going to ask that because I'm pretty sure I saw the crown jewels there yeah yeah exactly and you might have seen the Ravens there

which is pretty fun and the bee feeders the bee feeders exactly so the superstition is that the superstition in England is that that, quote, if the Tower of London Ravens are lost or fly away, the crown will fall in Britain with it. That's the

quote. And so now, at minimum, they keep six ravens at the Tower of London. There's actually a Ravenmaster, which is like the most metal job in the world. Can you imagine it's 2024, you're the Ravenmaster of the Tower of London? Get the fuck out of here with that job.

If you showed up at a bar and you turn to the girl next year, like, what do you do for a work? It's like, I'm a venture capitalist. And it's like, what do you do? It's like, I'm the Ravenmaster. It's like, dude, you're done. Like, you have, you don't even have to open your mouth. Also, you would know because he'd be wearing like a black coat cloak. I know. He's like carrying a raven on his shoulder. I'm the raven master. Oh, no, I see that. I see that. Yeah. I kind of picked it up with a raven on your

shoulder. So currently there are seven, um, seven ravens. They're named Jubilee, Harris, poppy, Georgie, Edgar, Bronwyn, and Rex. And Rex was the most recent one, and they added that when King Charles was coordinated. Great. So, thank you, Ravens, for preserving a very, very useful monarchy that...

Yeah, I guess. That we all love, to this day. He's done great things with the world. Sure. So that's my story. That's the Tower of London. That's cool. I definitely, when I was there, you could ice skate there. I didn't ice skate there, but I remember there was ice skating there, and I was like, that was hilarious.

Yeah, it's a weird thing knowing what misery existed there. Yeah. Tell me, do you know more about the beefeaters? So they wear those big hats and like, why is that their job? They're yeomens. They are the, there's some crazy title. We just call them beef eaters because the title is like the yeoman warrior to her crown majesty. It's like something crazy.

They're like just calling bee feeders. but technically I think it's actually mostly a ceremonial job I think it's like sort of their security guards at the Tower of London it's just like another thing that they spend money on where it's like do something different with this money yeah I guess yeah I guess they like stand there so what do I want I want September

oh September January they do a lot of standing there you know yeah exactly but that's fun it's crazy that you can like go on a tour to a place that was like that like stuff like that happened you know yeah I thought that too when I was in Ireland and walking around and being like I'm walking inside

like a 1600 year old ruins of like a castle it's just un it's just otherworldly like where people were like terrified and murdered and died and it's so weird it's just like our concept of time as Americans is like yeah nuts because how old is America 270 yeah and there's just like there's bars in England older than 270 exactly that's so funny there's so much more um luckily we're not going to run out of ideas because there's so much to talk about yeah it's yeah like that's what i was thinking with uh during

your episode. It's like it's kind of interconnected and it just goes so many layers deep because like realistically I could have done an entire episode on the Bloody Tower. They call the Bloody Tower. That's where the two princes were held. Like you could do an entire episode just on that part of the structure.

Like there's just so much to all this stuff. Which is why I also think a lot of it wasn't really documenting. It was just like it was like kind of how deep do you go? Or like it was and it was like destroyed like you said. Or it was like finding out like what the foundation of the tower of london was made out of when it was poured or late or whatever like that stuff doesn't exist like there would like well like you say it like going back to the when the romans were there and then like the romans just like abandoned england and then a whole bunch of stuff happened and then you know then it's yeah so much stuff yeah even like the whole um taking over of london it was really just like this guy

I just went around burning the shit out of everything, and the Anglo-Saxons were like, oh, we're done here. And this kid being like, I don't want to fight you anymore. I think I'm good. Let me go play with my leg goes. We just talked about with Jack the Ripper how hard it was to live in London then, you know? And that was like hundreds of years after this, you know? Life was so hard. Humans are so-in-London.

I know. I'd be into it. I'll go underground in London. Is there an underground in London? I have no idea. Remember our idea for the podcast, Underground with Taylor and Fars? And you go to caves and I go underneath cities. I mean, who dies first?

I think I'll die first. I don't know the body composition. You win if you die first. Oh, okay. Yeah, they'll win. I don't have the body composition to get through a cave really well. So I don't think it's going to go too good for me. But, yeah, that's my story and a little jaunt down to medieval times.

Very cool. Thank you. Very fun. makes you want to go back to London. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's like, I mean, listen, if there was ever a day when I could, like, just kind of semi-retire, I think I would just do that. I would just throw my luggage or my back and just go around England.

Yeah, especially if you, like, have enough money to stay at hotels. Like, I'm not going to backpack anywhere, but if I, like, have enough money to stay in hotels, then that is good. That's true. That's true. I've aged out of sharing bathrooms. Let's put it by. A thousand percent.

Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely not. Cool. Well, thank you. That was very, very fun. Yay. Do we have anything to read off? No, but I did want to mention that I did not send out our newsletter in October because I usually sent it in the beginning of the month and the beginning of November was too much. It's too much going on. But I will send it out soon. If you are not signed up for a newsletter and you want to get reminders of our episodes, we are on Substack at Doom to Fail Pod. We were on one of the million places that you can find us on the internet. But you can sign up for a newsletter there. Sweet. And the link is in our link tree on our Instagram.

I don't know. Beautiful. And find us on Duneafel pot at Jumann.com. Or write to us doing a note. What do you want to learn about? What's like a cool thing that you heard and you're like, I wish I anymore or you know a lot about it and you want us to know about it too. Tell us. What's funny is I literally came up with an idea for.

topic while we were talking or while you were doing your episode should i should i tell you no well i might not do it though okay tell me wait what was his name again no don't tell me i can't okay so i'm going i'm trying to find my my search history it was it was the you were talking about like the people going over niagara falls and i was like and i was like man like god god god bless these like legends of mankind who do the stupidest possible things and then i remember that guy who was like a limo driver in las vegas who wanted to prove that the earth was flat so he built like a homemade rocket and fired himself into space it like actually worked like he actually went far enough to be able to see the curvature of the earth and like it was like i need to i need to figure

out like what that guy's background history was like she taught himself rocket science and he doesn't believe the earth is round like it's so funny that's incredible isn't it yeah it's incredible. It's like not believing in gravity. What a hell to die on? Yeah. Yeah. He did die though. I did I did see died like four years ago. He blew himself up some other way. I came over. I think he did too. I think like went like 20 feet in the foul or something. Yeah. But there was one that was actually successfully. I actually did get far enough. But anyways, I might make that next week's topic, but it was just like, I was like thinking about like other crazy people. Yeah. I love it. That's so funny. Um, anyways, cool. Cool. Teller. That's all I got. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everyone.

Bye.