Tower of London

2024 (August 13 2024)
Commemorative

Designed by Studio Up
Size 60mm (h) x 30mm (v)
Printed by Cartor Security Print
Print Process Lithography
Perforations 14.5 x 14.5
Gum PVA

Stamps

The White Tower

1st

The White Tower is William the Conqueror’s original castle keep. The onion-shaped roofs on the turrets were added by Henry VIII.

Yeoman Warders

1st

The Yeoman Warders have been guarding the Tower since Tudor times. Today they also take part in ceremonial duties and parades.

Tower Green and The King’s House

£2.00

The original King’s House was probably built by Henry VIII for Anne Boleyn. The present building dates from about 1540, four years after her execution.

Traitors’ Gate

£2.00

Traitors’ Gate is the notorious waterside entrance through which many notable prisoners would have entered the Tower by barge.

St John’s Chapel

£2.50

St John’s Chapel was built as a place of worship for William the Conqueror, although it was not completed until after his death.

A Raven of The Tower

£2.50

The Tower ravens are cared for by the Ravenmaster and fed on a diet of mice, assorted raw meats and biscuits soaked in blood.

Princes Edward and Richard

from Miniature Sheet
1st

Imprisoned in 1483 The disappearance and supposed murder of the ‘Princes in the Tower’ is one of the Tower’s most tragic stories. After the death of their father, Edward IV, in 1483, 12-year-old Edward V and his 9-year-old brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, were kept in the Tower by their uncle, Richard III – who declared them illegitimate and claimed the crown for himself. The princes were never seen alive again. In 1674, the skeletons of two children were found hidden under a staircase in the White Tower.

Anne Boleyn

from Miniature Sheet
1st

Imprisoned in 1536 Anne Boleyn was the second wife of Henry VIII and mother of the future Elizabeth I. After just three years of marriage, having failed to provide the King with a male heir and amid accusations of adultery and treason, she was arrested and taken by barge to the Tower. The King ordered that she should die by the sword rather than the axe, which was less reliable, and she was executed inside the Tower’s walls in May 1536. She is buried in the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower’s Inner Ward.

Lady Jane Grey

from Miniature Sheet
£2.50

Imprisoned in 1553 After the death of her Protestant cousin, Edward VI, in July 1553, Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen in a bid to prevent the accession of her Catholic cousin, Mary I. Within a fortnight of arriving at the Tower to prepare for her coronation, she was deposed as queen and held prisoner after Mary I claimed the throne as rightfully hers. Despite Mary’s reluctance to punish her, the ‘Nine Days’ Queen’ proved too much of a threat and was executed on Tower Green in February 1554.

Sir Walter Raleigh

from Miniature Sheet
£2.50

Imprisoned in 1592, 1603 and 1618 A famous explorer, scholar and poet of Elizabeth I’s reign, Raleigh was a favourite of the queen and well rewarded. But his reckless nature eventually made him unpopular at court and he was imprisoned at the Tower on three separate occasions by both the queen and her successor, James I. Although deprived of his liberty, Raleigh’s status brought him certain privileges: his family could visit, he could grow exotic plants and he was permitted to study and write. Raleigh was one of the Tower’s longest-serving prisoners.