tone wall was being wrought
about the Tower, a stone bridge across the Thames was being built, and a
great hall was being erected at Westminster, whereby the citizens of
London were grievously oppressed."[14]

Now, as Gundulf did not die until 1108, it is by no means improbable
that, while superintending the erection of these two great towers at
London and Colchester,[15] he also constructed the stone wall round the
former, for the chronicler says of him that "in opere caementarii
plurimum sciens et efficax erat."[16]

As it is on record that the smaller keep of Dover, built by Henry II.
nearly a century later, was upwards of ten years in construction, while
some additional time had been consumed--in the collection of materials
and workmen--with the preliminary preparation of the site, it does not
seem probable that the great Tower of London (honeycombed as its walls
are with cells and mural passages) could have been erected in a much
shorter space of time. When the ruder appliances of the earlier period
are taken into account, such a keep could not have been built in a
hurry, for time would be needed to allow the great mass of the
foundation to gradually settle, and for the mortar to set. Although
preparations for its erection may have begun as early as 1083, it seems
more probable that the White Tower was not commenced much before 1087,
or completed before 1097.

Stow, quoting from FitzStephen's _Description of London_,[17] mentions
the White Tower as being "sore shaken by a great tempest of wind in the
year 1091," which, as I do not (with the conspicuous modesty of the late
Professor Freeman) "venture to _set aside_ the authority of the
chronicles"[18] when they have the audacity to differ from my
preconceived ideas, seems to me reasonable ground upon which to argue
that not only was the White Tower then in course of erection, but that
in that year the works were not in a very advanced state. That it must
have been completed prior to 1100 is evidenced by the fact that King
Henry I., on succeeding to the throne in August of that year, committed
to the custody of William de Mandeville, then Constable of the Tower,
his brother's corrupt minister, Ranulph (or Ralph) Flambard, Bishop of
Durham. The chronicler exultingly tells us that he was ordered[19] "to
be kept in fetters, and in the gloom of a dungeon," which must have been
either "Little Ease" or the small dark cell opening from the crypt of
St. John's Chapel, aft