In 1460, the men holding the Tower for the king turned their cannon on the streets around you.
Last reviewed 12 September 2026 · A three-minute read · 1080–1974
The short answer
The White Tower stands at the centre of the Tower of London, built by William the Conqueror in the early 1080s as a royal stronghold. In 1460, its garrison under Lord Scales fired cannon and wildfire into the surrounding city during a siege by Yorkist rebels and London's own militia, before starving and surrendering.
Digital copy of print taken 1993. Complete indexed photo collection at WorldHistoryPics.com. — 1993 · Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China · CC0
June to July 1460
The garrison fired on London to hold the fortress
In June 1460, a group of Yorkist nobles who had fled England the year before sailed back and landed at Sandwich. They were rebels against King Henry VI, and London welcomed them. Crowds cheered them into the city on July 2.
The Tower of London did not join the cheering. Its garrison held for the king, under a nobleman named Lord Scales. Rather than surrender the fortress quietly, Scales's men trained their cannon on the city outside the walls and opened fire. Wildfire and shot fell into the streets around where you are standing now, killing and wounding people who had no part in the quarrel.
Most of the Yorkist army marched off to fight the king's forces inland. They left 2,000 men behind under the Earl of Salisbury to deal with the Tower. Salisbury did not have to do it alone. London's own aldermen and militia joined the siege, and they got hold of bombards from a royal weapons store to start smashing down the Tower's curtain wall.
For weeks the Tower held out while its garrison ran short of food. On July 10 the Yorkists won the Battle of Northampton and captured King Henry himself, treating him for now as an honored prisoner rather than an enemy. Nine days later, cut off and starving, the garrison inside the Tower gave up.
Scales tried to slip away down the river by boat, disguised so no one would know him. Someone recognized him anyway. A mob dragged him out and cut him to pieces before he ever reached safety, on the water just beyond the walls he had been defending.
The men defending the fortress were starved out by the city they had just bombarded.
1483 to 1941
Tower Green was built for quiet, noble deaths
Tower Green sits about 200 feet from the White Tower, and it was built for exactly one purpose: killing people with rank high enough to spare them a public death. Ordinary condemned prisoners were dragged out to Tower Hill and executed in front of crowds. Nobility died here instead, quietly, away from the mob.
Anne Boleyn was brought here on May 19, 1536. Henry VIII had married her, crowned her, and then had her tried and condemned inside these same walls. A swordsman brought over specially from France took her head in a single stroke. Her body went into the Church of St Peter ad Vincula a few steps away, buried without ceremony, one of roughly 1,500 people in that crypt, many of them headless, some packed in quicklime to kill the smell of decay.
She was not the last. Lady Jane Grey died here too, queen for nine days before she wasn't queen at all. Ten people in total were executed on or near this patch of grass, seven by the block and three, centuries later, by firing squad.
A queen was killed on this ground by the same crown that once needed this fortress to survive a siege.
1471
Henry VI was murdered while praying in the Tower
Henry VI's name belongs to the siege of 1460. His garrison held these walls and fired on London to keep them. He lost that war. Years later, the Tower held him instead of protecting him, and he died inside it, murdered while praying in the Wakefield Tower's small chapel.
1600 to 1662
A refugee scholar died in London still building his ideas
Not everyone who ended up bound to this ground came as a prisoner or a soldier. Samuel Hartlib arrived in London a refugee, a Prussian-born scholar who spent his life pushing for education reform and the free exchange of scientific ideas among men who were, at the time, more interested in killing each other over religion. He never went home. He died in London in 1662, and his papers outlasted every plan he tried to build while he was alive.
Not every prisoner here left even a name. One did.
1500s
A tortured Irishman carved his name into the wall
Inside the Beauchamp Tower, a short walk from the green where the queens died, an Irishman named Thomas Miagh was held for contact with Irish rebels. His jailers used the Scavenger's Daughter on him, a device that crushed a man into himself until blood came from his nose and mouth. He survived long enough to carve his name into the stone wall of his cell. It is still there. The men who tortured him left no mark at all.
The walls that once fired on London now hold nothing but tourists and the names men scratched into them while waiting to die.
Open this place in Strata
Every person, building and event in this story opens into its own dig in the app — and it will dig the ground you are standing on instead, wherever that is.
Built in 1080 inside the White Tower, St John's Chapel is the oldest surviving complete Christian chapel from the early Norman period and still functions as a chapel royal.
Excavations beside the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula, just west of the White Tower, uncovered more than twenty skeletons, some buried in tight groups suggesting rushed 14th-century plague interments.
The crypt of the Chapel Royal, near where you stand, holds roughly 1,500 burials, including three queens and five men executed for adultery, some interred with quicklime.
Prisoners were interrogated and tortured in the basement of the White Tower for centuries; an executioner's block and axe from that era are still displayed there.
Seven people were beheaded and three shot by firing squad on Tower Green between 1483 and 1941, a privilege of rank meant to keep the deaths away from crowds.
Thomas Miagh, an Irishman found in contact with Irish rebels, was tortured with the Scavenger's Daughter device in the Beauchamp Tower and carved his name into its wall.
In 1786 Joseph Harbird stood trial for stealing two cocks, three hens, a duck, a nightcap and a key from the property of Matthew Burton, Esquire, in the Inner Ward.
On 17 July 1974, a bomb of ten to fourteen pounds exploded inside the White Tower, killing Dorothy Household and injuring 41 people, a dozen of them children.
Its garrison, holding for King Henry VI under Lord Scales, fired cannon and wildfire into the streets of London below during a Yorkist siege. The garrison surrendered on 19 July after weeks without food, and Scales was killed by a mob while trying to flee by boat.
What was here before the White Tower was built?
The material given does not describe the ground before William the Conqueror ordered the White Tower's construction in the early 1080s as a royal stronghold and residence.
Who was executed at Tower Green near the White Tower?
Ten people were executed on or near Tower Green between 1483 and 1941, seven by beheading and three by firing squad, including Anne Boleyn in 1536 and Lady Jane Grey.
Where was Anne Boleyn buried after her execution?
She was buried without ceremony in the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula, a few steps from Tower Green, in a crypt holding roughly 1,500 burials.
How did Henry VI die at the Tower of London?
He was murdered in 1471 while praying in the Wakefield Tower's chapel, years after his own garrison had held the Tower and fired on the city during the 1460 siege.
Who was Thomas Miagh?
An Irishman held in the Beauchamp Tower for contact with Irish rebels, tortured with the Scavenger's Daughter, who survived long enough to carve his name into the stone wall of his cell.
