This past Monday, our class took a trip to the Tower of London. I had never been there and was definitely not expecting to find basically an entire village instead of just a tower. The architecture that has survived hundreds of years was incredible to see, but what was inside was even better. One of the most interesting things to see what the graffiti left by prisoners of the towers. It makes their imprisonment more tangible to the people who are touring today.  

     We were also able to see the Crown Jewels which was absolutely amazing- definitely my favorite part. Between the precious stones, glittering gold, and giant salt holder, the wealth and magnitude of the British monarchy was very clearly conveyed. It was also a little upsetting to see this extreme level of wealth within these pieces created years ago when the British were still an empire. Many of their colonies were underdeveloped, and had slaves and other extremely poor populations so seeing the wealth that was available for no reason other than pageantry was very telling. The armory was also very overwhelmingly extravagant, with life-size models of horses clad in armor and even armor for children. War is one of the most important parts of history and shapes both economies and societies, and seeing all this historic armor really put that into perspective. War is expensive, only the rich (individuals or countries) can afford to have suits of armor such as those displayed in in the Tower of London. This makes it very easy to conquer other nations that do not have such strong, advanced armor for the time. 

    Not to be extremely negative about this beautiful structure, but all of it screams of extreme wealth and privilege that only a country like England could have.