The author traces the fortress’s development from its earliest origins through medieval and modern reigns, combining architectural description of the White Tower, walls, gates and domestic buildings with accounts of its changing functions as royal residence, stronghold, mint, menagerie and state prison. He recounts notable sieges, imprisonments and executions and the building campaigns and alterations carried out by successive rulers, treating Plantagenet, Tudor, Stuart and Hanoverian periods in separate chapters and illustrating the narrative with plans, drawings and manuscript illuminations.