The history of the Tower of London is both extensive and eerie. Its corridors hold secrets which belong to centuries of royalty, nobility, and the Wardens who have lived there. By the time of Shakespeare, the Tower's sinister connotations were familiar to early modern London culture, finding its way into the literature and theatre of the period. Playing upon the Tower's rich history, William Shakespeare further immortalizes the massive structure by forever binding the Tower to the Tudor myth. In so doing, Shakespeare transforms the Tower of London into a dramatic stage where the fates of kings and families are tragically met among the cold stone walls. By the Elizabethan period, the Tower of London had become a place of punishment whose prisoners left the Tower only to be executed. For royalty the Tower usually symbolized the royal entry. A new King or Queen's coronation procession would begin at the Tower and work its way toward Westminster Hall. Though the royal entry of Queen Elizabeth began in the Tower, she was also imprisoned there by her sister Mary. It was the experience of her imprisonment that Elizabeth lived to remember, and she vocalized the Tower's discomforts thus enhancing the fears of its threatening solitude. The foreboding idea of the Tower did not hold strong for its voluntary residents though, who have passed on the pride of upkeep of their home through generations. They tell tales of past families and prisoners as though they were the strong foundation on which the Tower was built. Shakespeare's working of the Tudor myth within his history plays begins and ends with the Tower of London, using it as a metaphorical stage on which England's history re-enacts itself. The Tudor-myth cycle of plays begins with Sin, leads through Suffering, and ends with Redemption, covering the Wars of the Roses, (the battle between the Houses of Lancaster and York). The Tower is a symbol of English lineage, history, and usurpation in both the sin and redemption stages of the Tudor myth. Through the years of suffering the Tower is used as prison before it can be the stage on which redemption is played out. -- Althea Fletcher, 2000