In 1232 the Tower was given into the custody for life to the famous Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent. His constableship, however, was brief, he being supplanted by Peter de Roches, Bishop of Winchester, and imprisoned in the fortress he had formerly governed.
It was during the reign of Henry III. that the newly-built tower over the Traitor’s Gate twice fell. The first time this happened was on the night of St George’s Day (23rd April) in 1240, and on the same anniversary in the following year the structure again sank into the moat. According to the historian Mathew Paris, the spirit of St Thomas à Becket was the cause of both these mishaps, the Saint returning from the home of the Blessed to the rescue of his beloved and persecuted London citizens, who had looked on the ever-increasing fortifications and massive walls of the royal stronghold, with much the same distrust and irritation as the fortress of the Bastille caused the Parisians.
Four years later, the son of the great Welsh chieftain and patriot, Llewellyn, was killed whilst attempting to escape from the White Tower in a similar manner as that by which Bishop Flambard had succeeded in ending his captivity. Mathew Paris relates that the unlucky Welsh prince was discovered at the foot of the White Tower with “his head thrust in between his shoulders.” The rope by which he had hoped to escape had broken, and he had been dashed to death in the fall.
During his long and agitated reign Henry III. was frequently obliged to take shelter within the Tower from his rebellious subjects. When Simon de Montfort and the Barons rose against his rule and encamped themselves near Richmond, Henry took refuge in the Tower with his eldest son Edward’s wife, Eleanor of Provence. Edward had been fighting Llewellyn in Wales, and hearing of the dangerous situation of his wife and father, hurried back to London, throwing himself into Windsor Castle. Eleanor of Provence made an attempt to join her husband at Windsor, but the London citizens were strongly on the side of the rebels, and when the Princess’s barge reached London Bridge on its way down the river it was stopped by a rabble who pelted it with stones, mud, and rotten eggs, and heaped the foulest abuse upon its royal occupant, who was forced to take shelter once more in the Tower. Edward is believed never to have forgiven the Londoners for this treatment of his wife, and his harshness to the city during his reign was probably due to this incident.