Six Famous Prisoners of the Tower of London (I)
魂断伦敦塔的六位名人（上）
作为欧洲现存的最古老的城堡之一，伦敦塔的建造者是当年赫赫有名的诺曼征服的首领——威廉一世。据说威廉加冕国王后仍非常担心伦敦人会对自己这个异族不利，所以建造伦敦塔来保护自己。历史上，英国数代君王都曾将其作为宫殿居住，但今天的伦敦塔之所以能蜚声世界，以其独特的魅力吸引着无数游客，主要还是因为它曾是一座关押上层阶级囚犯的监狱，不少王公贵族和政界名人都丧命于此。让我们一起来认识一下塔里曾关押过的六位著名的囚犯吧。
The Tower of London has served as everything from a royal residence to a zoo for exotic animals, but it remains best known as a fearsome prison and torture chamber.[1] First constructed in the wake of the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Tower has held some of Great Britain’s most prominent inmates, including disgraced royals, wouldbe revolutionaries and even Nazi officers.[2] Find out more about six of these famous captives of one of history’s most forbidding prisons.[3]
1. residence: 住所，住宅；exotic: 奇异的；fearsome:可怕的；torture: 酷刑拷问；chamber: 房间，接待室。
2. 伦敦塔起初建于1066年诺曼征服之后，它曾经关押过一些大英帝国最著名的囚犯，其中包括失势的皇室成员，意图谋反的革命者，甚至纳粹官员。in the wake of: 在……之后；Norman Conquest: 诺曼征服，指的是诺曼底公爵威廉（即威廉一世）于1066年对英格兰的征服；inmate: 囚犯；would-be: 本来打算的，原想要的。
3. captive: 囚犯，俘虏；forbidding: 令人生畏的。
Anne Boleyn[4]
Anne Boleyn
The second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn was twice a resident of the Tower of London—once as a queen-in-waiting and once as a condemned[5] prisoner. Boleyn married Henry in 1533 after the English king defied the Roman Catholic Church and annulled his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.[6] Housed in the Tower of London prior to her coronation in June 1533, Boleyn would reign as queen of England for nearly three years.[7]
Coupled with courtly intrigue and accusations of infidelity, Boleyn’s failure to give birth to a male heir ultimately proved to be her undoing.[8] Accused of seducing the king into a cursed marriage, in May 1536 she was arrested on trumped-up charges of adultery, treason and even an alleged incestuous affair with her brother.[9] Boleyn was confined to the Lieutenant’s Lodgings of the Tower of London, where she was tried and found guilty.[10] She was beheaded by a French swordsman on a scaffold at the Tower on May 19, 1536.[11] Catherine Howard, Henry’s fifth wife, would meet a similar fate when she was imprisoned and then executed[12] at the Tower of London in 1542.
4. Ann Boleyn: 安妮·博林，亨利八世的第二任妻子，后被亨利斩首。
5. condemned: 被判罪的，受谴责的。
6. defy: （公然）反抗，违抗；annul: 宣告……无效；Catherine of Aragon:（阿拉贡的）凯瑟琳，当时西班牙统治者的女儿，亨利八世的第一任妻子。
7. prior to: 在……之前；coronation: 加冕（典礼）；reign: 统治。
8. 除了参与宫廷阴谋以及被指控（对国王）不贞之外，博林最终垮台还因为没能诞下子嗣。couple with: 与……一起；intrigue: 阴谋；accusation: 指控；infidelity: 不贞，不忠心；undoing: 垮台，毁灭。
9. seduce: 引诱，勾引；trumped-up:捏造的；adultery: 通奸；treason：叛国罪；alleged:（在证据不足的情况下）被指控的；incestuous: 乱伦的。
10. be confined to: 被关押在，被禁闭在；Lieutenant’s lodging: 副官的房间；try: 审判，审讯。
11. behead: 砍头；scaffold: 断头台。
12. execute: 处死。
Sir Walter Raleigh[13]
Sir Walter Raleigh
One of the longest-serving prisoners of the Tower of London was the famed Sir Walter Raleigh, who was confined to the citadel[14] for some 13 years. A soldier and explorer who engineered the illfated English colony at Roanoke Island, Raleigh was knighted by Elizabeth I in 1585 and became one of the queen’s favorite courtiers.[15] Despite his influential position, Raleigh was briefly imprisoned in the Tower in 1592 when it was revealed that he had secretly wed Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the queen’s maids of honor.[16]
Raleigh was confined to the Tower a second time in 1603 after he was accused of plotting against King James I.[17] Stripped of most of his wealth, he would spend nearly 13 years detained in a part of the castle known as the Bloody Tower.[18] While he was ostensibly a prisoner, Raleigh’s high social standing ensured that he had comfortable lodgings, and he was even joined in the Tower by his family.[19] During this time he devoted himself to science and writing—composing[20] his History of the World in 1614—and also fathered a son. Raleigh was released in 1616 and dispatched to Central America in search of the mythical gold city of El Dorado.[21] The mission proved unsuccessful, and Raleigh was arrested and executed at the block after his forces attacked a Spanish outpost against the orders of the king.[22]
13. Sir Walter Raleigh: 沃尔特·雷利爵士，英国伊丽莎白时代著名的冒险家。他年轻时致力于早期英国在新大陆的殖民地开拓，曾在北美洲建立维吉尼亚以歌颂当时的英国女王伊丽莎白一世。他在伦敦塔幽禁期间编纂了《世界史》（History of the World）一书。
14. citadel: 城堡（此处指伦敦塔）。
15. engineer: 建造；ill-fated: 带来不幸的，倒霉的；Roanoke Island: 美国北卡罗来纳州沿海岛屿，是英国在北美的第一个居住点；knight: 授予……骑士称谓；courtier: 侍臣。
16. wed: 娶；maid of honor: 宫女。
17. plot against: 密谋反对；King James I: 詹姆斯一世，于伊丽莎白一世死后继承王位。
18. strip: 除去，剥夺；detain: 拘留。
19. ostensibly: 表面上地，名义上地；social standing: 社会地位；ensure: 确保。
20. compose: 创作。
21. release: 释放；dispatch: 派遣，发送；El Dorado: 埃尔多拉多，传说中的黄金国，可能的遗址是在南美洲的秘鲁。
22. mission: 任务；outpost: 前哨，边境。
The Princes in the Tower
The Princes in the Tower
Twelve-year-old Prince Edward V and 10-year-old Prince Richard of Shrewsbury—better known as “the Princes in the Tower”—are among the most famous prisoners to have disappeared within the bowels of the Tower of London.[23] The two boys first arrived at the castle in 1483 after the death of their father, King Edward IV. The princes were originally housed in the Tower on the orders of their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, but were stripped of their royal titles after the duke invalidated their father’s marriage, declared them illegitimate and claimed the throne for himself as King Richard III.[24] Moved from their opulent royal apartments to the confines of the Garden Tower (later known as the Bloody Tower), the boys effectively became prisoners of the crown.[25]
While there were initially sightings of the former princes playing in the Tower courtyard, by mid-1483 they had vanished without a trace.[26] The would-be monarchs’ true fate remains a mystery. While a Flemish man claiming to be Prince Richard would invade England in 1497 and attempt to take the throne, he was later revealed to be a pretender and was executed at the Tower of London.[[27] The only clue would come in 1674, when the skeletons of two children were found during renovations[28] to the Tower. While these were never proven to be the bodies of the Princes in the Tower, the discovery fueled speculation that the boys had been murdered, with their uncle Richard III the most likely culprit.[29]
23. Prince Edward V: 爱德华五世，是爱德华四世（Edward IV）的长子，父亲死后继位为英格兰国王，但两个月后就被叔父摄政王格洛斯特公爵理查（Richard, Duke of Gloucester）废黜，理查登基为理查三世。退位后不久，爱德华五世就和他唯一的弟弟约克公爵理查（Prince Richard of
Shrewsbury）一起神秘失踪；the bowels of sth.: 某物的最深处。
24. invalidate: 使无效；illegitimate: 非法的；claim the throne for oneself: 宣称自己是国王。
25. opulent: 豪华的，奢侈的；effectively: 实际上。
26. initially: 起初；vanish without a trace: 消失得无影无踪。
27. Flemish: 弗兰芒人，现属比利时；invade:入侵；pretender: 冒充者。
28. renovation: 修复，翻修。
29. fuel: 激起；speculation: 推测，推断；culprit: 罪犯。
以上内容节选自《英语学习》杂志。版权所有，转载请注明出处
联系客服
