Brendan’s Alternate Tagline for Tower:
Prisoners, jewels, and animals, oh my!
Quick synopsis:
The story of the Tower of London.
Fun Fact Non-History People Will Like:
It was actually a zoo for a while! Wait, sorry, not aristocratic enough. It was a menagerie.
Fun Fact for History Nerds:
Short list of big names kept in the Tower: William Wallace, St. John Fisher, St. Thomas More, Anne Boleyn, Thomas Cromwell, Lady Jane Grey, Sir Walter Raleigh, Guy Fawkes, William Penn, and so on and so forth.
My Take:
I guess when a building has been around for almost a thousand years then it has some stories to tell.
Most people know the Tower of London for all the people who were jailed there. There were quite a few! But other than being a jail, the Tower of London was also a menagerie, the treasury, a mint, armory, public records office, and the home of the Crown Jewels of England. Oh, there also might be two princes who were murdered and buried somewhere in the Tower. Oh, those cheeky English.
The book could be very dry if it just listed all the things the Tower has been, but Jones makes as much of a narrative out of it as possible. Instead of just telling about these events, Jones ties them to the famous people associated with them. Specifically, Isaac Newton was head of the English Mint for years and was even smarter than I knew.
Verdict:
A great read. Buy it here!
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