DUO PAULO PRINCIPES

The Tower of London

Many visitors to London go and see the Tower; but it is not a very cheerful place. It is therefore no wonder that the Kings of England lett the place. When you visit the Tower, you may be taken around by a "Beefeater" dressed in a Renaissance battle dress. Nobody can be sure why he is called by such a name and it would be not wise or polite to ask him whether he is always eating beef for lunch.He will show you how thick the walls are , in some places fifteen feet. He will take you through long dark passages, up and down narrow steps, into big and cold rooms, and down into deep cellars where prisoners were kept. At the foot of one staircase, he will probably hold on and say: Here are the bones of the two little princes found." It is said that these were the two boys of King Edward IV. When their father died the elder boy became King Edward V, the younger boy was Duke of York

.

 Their uncle Duke Richard wished to be king, and gave order to his men to take the boys in the Tower. They were never to be seen again. People began to whisper that they were killed by two men sent  by their uncle to the Tower but no one dared to say anything, as Duke Richard had many friends ready to fight for him. After a while, Richard became King of England as Richard III.

The oldest if not most remarkable monument of London.

It was built by William the Conqueror as a castle to control the Lower Thames and central part of England, short after his victory at Hastings in 1066 on Harold Fair Haired the last Saxon king to whom he disputed the crown. 

He pretented he was the true heir of the kingdom by his mother. He was supported by the Norman nobility but also the Picardy and Flemish barons who saw in this prospect a quick way to enrich themselves.

The castle served as a royal residence till the 16th century when king Henry VIII built Hampton Court as new residence on the lower Thames near Wimbledon.
It served than as prison and some well known people among them, the poor princes Edward V and Richard, sons of Edward IV who were probably murdered by their uncle Richard III

 and later the ravishing and infortuned Anne Boleyn was there imprisonned and later beheaded.

The lattest person executed was a German spy.

The castle is used today as a museum for the Queen's jewels and is guarded by a company of beefeaters and a pack of crows.

According to the legend, England will stay free as long as the crows nest in the Tower of London.

VECTIS, the isle of Wight

I S L E   O F   W  I G H T

They called the island 'Wight' meaning raised or what was over the sea. 

Then the Romans arrived in 43 AD and translated Wight in the name VECTIS

from the Latin 'veho' meaning lifting.

Island off the South Coast of  Hampshire, England. 

It is ideally located in the English Channel, two or five miles away from New Hampshire's coast. 

The Soleny is the narrow arm of water which separates it from Great Britain.

It was settled by Jutes, according to Bede the Venerable in his history of England.

One of the most beautiful villages of England is located in the middle of the island; Godshill, painted by British artist Edward Robert Sturgeon.

The island, 384 square kilometer and 142.000 inhabitants became famous as a holliday resort when Queen Victoria had her palace built in Osborne.

Mark Robert is also born there and spent his youth at Sanshank.
Its closed location and its soft climate explains its high population.
Its highest point is Saint Boniface Downs and reaches 241 metres.

It is also the home land of poet Agernon Charles Swynburne, son of an admiral. He grew up in a small castle East Eden in Bonchurch near the famous sea resort Ventnor, which is the most southward point of the island.

The poet Charles Swynburne spent his youth in East  Eden castle in Bonchurch which belonged to his family, part of the English aristocracy. He went later to Eton college, where he met the Pre raphaelites Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Wiliam Moris and Edward Burne Jones. He wrote "Atalante in Calydon" and "Songs before Sunrise"

Although he was rather frail and weak, Swynburne succeded the first to climb Culver Cliff.

The lawn behind the castle stretches to the sea, where a small beach of pebbles is accessible for the castle visitors who are mostly students of international schools. They learn English in an exclusive surrounding, like the Belgian school Depauw international of Courtrai.