{"id":804,"date":"2010-05-31T18:34:29","date_gmt":"2010-05-31T22:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/?p=804"},"modified":"2010-05-31T18:50:14","modified_gmt":"2010-05-31T22:50:14","slug":"london-day-1-the-tower-of-london-hyde-park-speakers-corner-and-kensington-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/31\/london-day-1-the-tower-of-london-hyde-park-speakers-corner-and-kensington-palace\/","title":{"rendered":"London: Day 1, The Tower of London, Hyde Park & Speaker’s Corner, and Kensington Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Arrived in London shortly after noon Saturday on an overnight flight which had left Dallas at 9:00 p.m. Friday. \u00a0It was 4:00 by the time we made our way to our hotel and were settled in. Hotels.com had cancelled our paid-in-full reservation (let that be a warning to you) but Marriott County Hall made good on it; read to the end of this blog article to see how. After a shower and supper we went to bed and didn\u2019t see the light of day until 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning—must have been tired.<\/p>\n

Saturday started with no seats at the hotel breakfast, so the lady made good on that with four vouchers to the buffet downstairs\u2026\u2026.$90 breakfast tab, no charge. Thank you very much! We\u2019re off to the Tower of London.<\/p>\n

The Tower of London is really a fortification along the Thames with several towers. It was home to the English royalty for centuries. The first structure was built by William the Conqueror 1000 or so years ago. Today\u2019s it\u2019s the home to the Crown Jewels (kind of gaudy\u2026.not really that impressive, but what do I know) and has a number of historical artifacts complete with Beefeaters who giving tours which include details on all the beheadings carried out by the threatened Kings. Think of a cross between the White House and Plymouth Plantation and Silver Dollar City and you\u2019ll kind of have it pegged. As the tour unfolded I came to understand why the British term \u201cbloody\u201d means damned, for apparently anyone who crossed the Monarch was just that. Bloodied.<\/p>\n

Apparently the biggest stink over the centuries—at least the biggest I heard about—related to Henry VIII wanting a divorce which Rome disallowed, so he broke away from the Catholic Church at established the Church of England. Evidently Rome and its various authorities dispatched to England weren\u2019t real keen on this idea and protested vigorously. Perhaps this is where the term \u201che doth protest too much\u201d came from, because any notion of speaking out against the Monarch apparently earned you the designation \u201cbloody.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, we saw the crown jewels, the guns, the cannons, the demonstrations of firepower, spinning, cooking pottage\u2026..the pretend war was kind of interesting. Watching the soldiers line up in four columns of four rows with the front row firing and then running to the back so that row two could fire gave clear meaning to the concept \u201crank and file.\u201d<\/p>\n

I found the terminology around the Tower interesting. They spoke of the \u201cbulwark\u201d\u2026.a term you might have heard if you ever sang \u201cA mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.\u201d It means \u201cwall.\u201d The implication is that a wall is protection. Kings were quick to build walls. Apparently, being King makes you a target for people who aren\u2019t so keen on being \u201csubjects.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seemed that the Kings built their houses as towers. The top floor was theirs, underneath lived their servants, under that lesser servants, and in the basement\u2026\u2026..well, that\u2019s the dungeon where they kept their prisoners.\u00a0 Back to the towers\u2026\u2026there are lots of towers\u2026\u2026..which brought to mind that more contemporary song we sing \u201cThe name of the Lord is, a strong tower. The righteous run into it, and they are saved.\u201d Well, in rural Missouri the concept of a tower doesn\u2019t mean a lot. (We\u2019ve got the Hammon\u2019s Tower in Springfield, but that\u2019s about it.) But here in the land of castles and moats, you begin to understand the imagery in the songs when they speak of bulwarks and towers.<\/p>\n

I was impressed by the close tie of church and state. The murderous Kings exhibited a lot of religious behavior. They had private chapels and Mass was offered regularly. Then they went out and had their wives heads chopped off. Hmmmm. Some significant inconsistencies—-religion as a tool, not a demonstration of devotion.<\/p>\n

From there it was on to the Tower Bridge\u2026\u2026a really cool old drawbridge built next to the Tower and containing towers itself. I thought of my friend Stan Elmore as I toured Tower Bridge. It\u2019s an engineer\u2019s dream. Uh, to me\u2026..it was\u2026\u2026a bridge. But apparently England is proud of it. (Did I ever mention I grew up in Galena. We had the \u201cY\u201d bridge—one of only two in the world. The other is in Ohio. I got to see it a couple of summer\u2019s ago when I judged a goat show in Ohio. OK. That\u2019s all I\u2019ve got on bridges.)<\/p>\n

Next stop: Hyde Park and Speaker\u2019s Corner. If you have ever been to New York City and seen the goofballs screaming from the street corners on Time\u2019s Square you have a little concept of Speaker\u2019s Corner. If you\"\"<\/a> want to make a public spectacle of yourself in London, this is the place to do it. There were probably six to 10 different speakers standing on their soap boxes (usually an aluminum step stool). Some were talking rather softly. Many were shouting loudly. I\u2019d guess it was about half political speech—most seeming to be middle eastern in nature—and about half preaching, mostly Christian with maybe one or two Muslims mixed in.<\/div>\n

The Jesus\u2019 speakers were doing a reasonably good job of communicating accurately, though I\u2019m not sure they were being very persuasive. One was being heckled severely by a group of Muslims. But he was withstood them well.<\/p>\n

Another preacher clearly presented the Christian gospel and then began to pray for a man nearby asking God to bless the man. An onlooker got miffed about it, and suddenly came at me to talk in a \u201cmaking fun\u201d sort of way about the preacher. I told him that Jesus was my Lord and Savior and he just looked at me bizarrely and walked away.<\/p>\n

Then there was the guy with the chicken hat—himself a speaker—who yelled that Jesus was a homosexual, the bed partner of Peter\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

There were a number of quieter evangelical witnessing huddles where seemingly better dialogue was being had. But I don\u2019t know that the venue is the most effective way to reach out in London.<\/p>\n

I took my girls aside and shared this with them:<\/p>\n