Red Ensign
This marks the Tower Hill Memorial, the site of public execution of, principally, nobility and gentlemen from the late 14th to late 18th century. Some 125 executions are recorded from the late 14th to late 18th century, most being beheadings but burning at the stake as well as hanging, with or without drawing and quartering, are included. Public executions meant, it is said, that 100,000 spectators were typical of the occasion. Royalty was despatched within the Tower. .

Treason was often the charge, associated with such as Lambert Simnel, Perkin Warbeck, the Monmouth Rebellion and Jacobite Rising with the last, two women and a man, being hanged following the Gordon Riots in 1780. Perhaps best-known is Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, beheaded on Tower Hill in 1535 for refusing to renounce Catholicism and acknowledge King Henry VIII as Head of the Church of England. In 1516, More wrote ‘Utopia’ but may be better known today through Hilary Mantel’s ‘Wolf Hall’ and ‘Bring Up the Bodies’ while Robert Bolt’s play, ‘A Man for All Seasons’ became a film for which Paul Schofield won an Oscar as More.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission confusingly refers to the adjacent Merchant Navy Memorial as the Tower Hill Memorial, using its own geographical shorthand. See separate notes on MN Memorial. 
