The Fortress of His Mind: Charles d’Orleans’ Capitivity in The Tower of London

by Erin Byrne

I felt claustrophobic inside the square room deep inside the thick stone cavern of the White Tower. There in the huge complex of the Tower of London, I experienced a trapped feeling of dejavu.  I could not shake the memory of sand trickling through the hourglass. I remembered the dreary atmosphere here in the year 1415, the first year of captivity.

More than 5 centuries after he was here, I felt the presence of Charles d'Orleans of France, the one whose memories of the hourglass felt like my own. He was captured at Agincourt by Henry V, at the age of 21. Charles spent 25 ye...