Constables of the Tower of London were typically leading nobility and courtiers, including in the medieval period, four Archbishops of Canterbury. Nominally responsible for the running of the site, the Constables acquired various legal and financial privileges over time including;
- Collecting tolls on selected goods from ships entering London and being entitled to all flotsam and jetsam on the Thames
- Regulating Jewish affairs in the Capital until the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290
- Exercising legal authority in the area around the Tower known as the Tower Liberties and benefitting from fees paid by state prisoners for their maintenance
Important personalities
George Legge, 1st Baron Dartmouth
Appointed as Constable of the Tower in 1685 during the reign of James II, Legge knew the Tower intimately having already served there as a Captain in 1669 as well as holding the office of Master General of the Ordnance since 1682.
However in July 1691, Legge was committed as a prisoner to the Tower, charged with sending intelligence across the Channel to the Jacobite opposition. He was stripped of all his offices by William III, even though he had taken the oath of allegiance to the new king and queen.
His imprisonment in the Tower was brief. On 25 October 1691, Dartmouth died of apoplexy and was buried with his father in Holy Trinity Minories, rather than at the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower.
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Appointed as Constable in 1826 during the reign of George IV, Wellesley exerted a major influence on the Tower: draining the moat, reorganising the establishment of the Yeomen Warders and overseeing the building of the Waterloo Barracks.
Wellesley had strong opinions about the role of the Tower and was insistent that all the guns captured in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo should be preserved. To this day the Tower mounts a battery of Waterloo guns outside the Waterloo Barracks to the north of the White Tower.
