Raise the new flag stamp at The Tower of London - 13 August 2024.

On 13 August Royal Mail will issue a package of stamps and philatelic products for the latest in the drawn-out series of Royal Palaces, featuring the Tower of London.  This follows Buckingham Palace in 2014, Windsor Castle in 2017, Hampton Court in 2018, and the Palace of Westminster in 2020.

But on the same day they are issuing an update of an earlier stamp, which will attract far less general attention, and that is the Union Flag.  

This was first issued as one of four flags in the miniature sheet which was part of the 2001 issue marking the Centenary of the Royal Naval Submarine Service. 

Union Flag 1st class stamp from 2001 'Submarines' miniature sheet.

The same stamp was issued in the 2004 Rule Britannia Smilers Sheet and in the 2008 James Bond prestige booklet, and a reduced format was issued in 2005 definitive-sized in a greetings booklet.  It was also issued as a Post and Go stamp in 2012 in time for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics. and in many private Smilers and Business Customised Sheets.

So it's popularity makes reissuing it with the head of King Charles III a sensible decision - but where can it be bought?  Certainly the few tourists who still send postcards abroad would not use it because two (cost £2.70) would be needed to send a single card/letter.  Unless a Post and Go version is to be reissued in Post Office self-service kiosks it's use anywhere seems to be very limited.  But it will doubtless be used by cover producers, notably the Westminster Collection, for their series of royal memorabilia covers.

King Charles III 1st class Union Flag stamp issued 13 August 2024.

In common with other recent stamps, most notably the country definitives, the head and denomination are reversed-out (ie white), rather than silver as the original issue was.

Technical details

Printed by Cartor Security Printers in lithography with conventional PVA gum in sheets of 25/50. Size 41 x 30 mm, perf 14.5 x 14.

Products available - mint stamps, first day cover. No presentation pack or stamp card.

The Tower of London

Royal Mail information on this issue

For almost a thousand years, the Tower of London has been at the heart of British history, inspiring awe, fear and fascination. Over the centuries it has played many different roles: from impenetrable fortress to royal residence, menagerie of exotic animals to place of execution, Royal Mint to home of the Crown Jewels. Today, the Tower remains a living institution, home to more than 100 people – including the famous Yeoman Warders, or ‘Beefeaters’ – as well as being a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most recognisable historic monuments in the world. 

While the Tower was originally built as a fortress and symbol of royal power, it was also a notorious state prison. For more than 800 years, anyone posing a serious threat to national security – from monarchs and priests to lords and commoners – was incarcerated within its walls.  

Royal Mail explores the fascinating history and traditions of the Tower of London with a set of six mint stamps and a miniature sheet. The mint stamp set consists of The White Tower, Tower Green and The King’s House, St John’s Chapel, Traitors’ Gate, Yeoman Warders and a Raven of the Tower.

Set of 6 Tower of London stamps issued 13 August 2024: 2 each se-tenant vertically 1st class, £2 and £2.50.

The stamps in detail

1st Class - The White Tower is William the Conqueror’s original castle keep. The onion-shaped roofs on the turrets were added by Henry VIII.

1st Class - The Yeoman Warders have been guarding the Tower since Tudor times. Today they take part in ceremonial duties and parades. 

£2.00 - Tower Green and The King’s House. The original King’s House was probably built by Henry VIII for Anne Boleyn. The present building dates from about 1540, four years after her execution. 

£2.00- Traitors’ Gate is the notorious waterside entrance through which many notable prisoners would have entered the Tower by barge.

£2.50 - St John’s Chapel was built as a place of worship for William the Conqueror, although it was not completed until after his death.

£2.50 - A Raven of the Tower,  The Tower ravens are cared for by the Ravenmaster and fed on a diet of mice, assorted raw meats and biscuits soaked in blood.

Miniature Sheet

The additional set of four stamps included in the Miniature Sheet: Sent to the Tower, looks at famous prisoners during the Tower of London’s time as a formidable state prison: 

1st class Princes Edward and Richard - the ‘Princes in the Tower’ and Anne Boleyn

£2.50 - Lady Jane Grey, the ‘Nine Days Queen’ and Sir Walter Raleigh. 

'Sent to the Tower' miniature sheet of 2 x 1st class & 2 x £2.50 stamps issued 13 August 2024.

Details

Princes Edward and Richard - Imprisoned in 1483
The disappearance and supposed murder of the ‘Princes in the Tower’ is one of the Tower’s most tragic stories. After the death of their father, Edward IV, in 1483, 12-year-old Edward V and his 9- year-old brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, were kept in the Tower by their uncle, Richard III – who declared them illegitimate and claimed the crown for himself. The princes were never seen alive again. In 1674, the skeletons of two children were found hidden under a staircase in the White Tower.
 
Anne Boleyn - Imprisoned in 1536
Anne Boleyn was the second wife of Henry VIII and mother of the future Elizabeth I. After just three years of marriage, having failed to provide the king with a male heir and amid accusations of adultery and treason, she was arrested and taken by barge to the Tower. The king ordered that she should die by the sword rather than the axe, which was less reliable, and she was executed inside the Tower’s walls in May 1536. She is buried in the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower’s Inner Ward.
 
Lady Jane Grey - Imprisoned in 1553
After the death of her Protestant cousin, Edward VI, in July 1553, Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen in a bid to prevent the accession of her Catholic cousin, Mary I. Within a fortnight of arriving at the Tower to prepare for her coronation, she was deposed as queen and held prisoner after Mary I claimed the throne as rightfully hers. Despite Mary’s reluctance to punish her, the ‘Nine Days Queen’ proved too much of a threat and was executed on Tower Green in February 1554.
 
Sir Walter Raleigh - Imprisoned in 1592, 1603 and 1618.
A famous explorer, scholar and poet of Elizabeth I’s reign, Raleigh was a favourite of the queen and well rewarded. But his reckless nature eventually made him unpopular at court and he was imprisoned at the Tower on three separate occasions by both the queen and her successor, James I. Although deprived of his liberty, Raleigh’s status brought him certain privileges: his family could visit, he could grow exotic plants and he was permitted to study and write. Raleigh was one of the Tower’s longest-serving prisoners.

Technical details and acknowledgements

The 60 x 30 mm stamps have been designed by Studio Up, and printed by Cartor Security Printers in lithography, in sheets of 30 se-tenant pairs. Perforation is 14.5.

The 180 x 74 mm miniature sheet was designed by Webb & Webb Design and Royal Mail Group Ltd, and was printed by Cartor Security Printers in lithography.  The stamps are 35 x 37 mm and perforated 14 x 14.5. 

Produced under licence from Historic Royal Palaces Enterprises Limited 2024 © Historic Royal Palaces; The White Tower © dleiva/Alamy Stock Photo; Yeoman Warders, and Tower Green and The King’s House, photographs by David Noton © Historic Royal Palaces; Traitors’ Gate © Keith Erskine/Alamy Stock Photo; St John’s Chapel © eye35 stock/Alamy Stock Photo; A Raven of The Tower © DPFSTOCK/Shutterstock.   

The Princes Edward and Richard in the Tower by John Everett Millais © Royal Holloway, University of London/Bridgeman Images; map of area around the Tower © Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo; Anne Boleyn portrait by unknown artist © National Portrait Gallery, London; graffiti showing Anne Boleyn’s falcon emblem © Historic Royal Palaces; The Last Moments of Lady Jane Grey by Hendrik Jacobus Scholten © Historic Royal Palaces; Queen Jane and Lord Guilford Dudley brought back to the Tower by George Cruikshank, print from The Tower of London: A Historical Romance by William Harrison Ainsworth © The Print Collector/Alamy Stock Photo; Sir Walter Raleigh portrait by William Segar © Bridgeman Images; a handwritten extract from Sir Walter Raleigh’s ‘Cynthia’ poems © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved/Bridgeman Images; background image: North Front of St Thomas’s Tower and Traitors’ Gate illustration © Hansrad Collection/Alamy Stock Photo. 

Products available

Set of 6, miniature sheet, first day covers (2), presentation pack, stamp cards, press sheet of 10 miniature sheets, medal cover (£20), framed stamp and miniature sheet (£45).

Text of Presentation Pack

TOWER of LONDON:  A MIGHTY FORTRESS, ROYAL PALACE AND INFAMOUS PRISON.

For almost a thousand years, the tower of London has been at the heart of British history, inspiring awe, fear and fascination. Steeped in tales of treachery and torture, ghostly sightings and grisly deaths, it is a place of myth and legend, ceremony and tradition.

Over the centuries, the Tower of London has played many different roles: from impenetrable fortress to royal residence, state prison to menagerie of exotic animals, place of execution to Royal Mint, national arsenal to home of the Crown Jewels. Today, it remains a living institution, home to more than 100 people, as well as being a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most famous historic monuments in the world.

The story of the Tower begins after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. To protect London, the richest and largest city in the kingdom, and to assert his power, William the Conqueror ordered the building of a mighty fortress. Situated in the southeast corner of the city, adjacent to both the Thames and the old Roman wall, his great stone keep dominated the skyline. The White Tower, as it came to be known (after receiving a coat of whitewash in around 1240), was unlike anything that had gone before. A chapel, called St John’s Chapel, was also built within the White Tower. As well as being a spectacular place of worship, it sent a powerful message – that the Normans were God-fearing Christians as well as mighty warriors. The chapel remains an active place of worship for the Tower community today.

William the Conqueror’s military and political stronghold endured and over time many more buildings were added to the original fortress. In the 12th and 13th centuries, both Henry III and Edward I expanded the Tower by enlarging the moat and adding huge defensive walls dotted with a series of smaller towers. The Tower became England’s largest and strongest ‘concentric’ castle, comprising one ring of defences inside another, with royal lodgings at the centre. This was also when the waterside entrance that became known as Traitors’ Gate was built. Prisoners accused of treason would enter the Tower through this entrance, having been brought along the Thames by barge.

In the early 13th century, perhaps surprisingly, the Tower became London’s first zoo after King John established a royal menagerie within its walls. Wild animals never before seen in London were given to successive kings and queens of England as exotic gifts by foreign rulers. Early residents included three leopards, given to Henry III in 1235 by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, a ‘white bear’, presumably a polar bear, which arrived as a gift from the King of Norway in the early 1250s, and an African elephant, which was presented to Henry III by Louis IX of France in about 1255. The menagerie continued to grow until the 19th century, when concerns over animal welfare prompted a move to Regents Park and the founding of what is now London Zoo.

The Tower’s most famous animal residents, however, must surely be the ravens. Known as the ‘Guardians of the Tower’, their presence at the Tower is protected by a legend dating from the 1670s, when the Royal Observatory had a temporary home in the north-eastern turret of the White Tower. The first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, complained to Charles II that the ravens were interfering with his observations. Having first ordered their destruction, the king changed his mind on hearing that a great disaster would befall the kingdom should the ravens ever leave the Tower. The king decreed that at least six ravens should be kept at the Tower at all times. Today the Tower is home to the requisite six ravens, plus at least one ‘spare’ bird. Although their flight feathers are occasionally trimmed to encourage them to stay at the Tower, the ravens are still able to fly and are provided with plenty of food and a comfortable enclosure.

While the Tower was originally built as a fortress and symbol of royal power, it was also a notorious state prison. For more than 800 years, anyone posing a serious threat to national security – from monarchs and priests to lords and commoners – was incarcerated there. The Tower’s first prisoner, Ranulf Flambard, the Bishop of Durham, was also its first escapee. In 1101, while imprisoned in the White Tower on the orders of Henry I, Flambard climbed through a window using a rope smuggled inside a barrel of wine. 

Many of the most important figures in British history were subsequently ‘sent to the Tower’, including Henry VIII’s chancellor, Sir Thomas More, in 1534, the future Elizabeth I in 1554 and, in 1605, political conspirator Guy Fawkes, who was interrogated and tortured at the Tower before being sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered at Old Palace Yard, Westminster. 

In more recent times, Rudolf Hess, deputy leader of the Nazi Party, was held there during the Second World War, while East End gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray became the last prisoners to be held at the Tower, in 1952. Among the few prisoners afforded the privilege of execution within the Tower were three queens of England: Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, Catherine Howard, his fifth wife, and Lady Jane Grey, known as the ‘Nine Days Queen’. Sightings of the ghosts of both Lady Jane Grey and Anne Boleyn have been reported over the years, with witnesses describing Anne Boleyn’s ghost as a headless figure that drifts from The King’s House to the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, her final resting place.

For more than 500 years, between the late 13th and early 19th centuries, the Royal Mint was housed within the Tower’s walls, installed there by Edward I in c.1279. Most of the coins of the realm were struck there until 1810. The Mint within operated from a series of closely guarded temporary workshops, as well as more permanent factory buildings in the Outer Ward, which became known as Mint Street. 

After the death of Henry VIII in 1547, the Tower also became home to Britain’s oldest museum when arms and armour from various royal palaces were collected there, together with what remained of the medieval arsenal. Today, the Royal Armouries has one of the greatest collections of its type in the world. And for more than 600 years, the monarch’s crowns, robes and other ceremonial items have been held at the Tower, with the coronation regalia, or Crown Jewels, having been kept there since the 1660s.

The Tower is guarded by the famous Yeoman Warders or ‘Beefeaters’ – so named, it is said, because they were granted the privilege of being allowed to eat as much beef as they wanted from the king’s table. Yeoman Warders were originally part of the Yeomen of the Guard, the monarch’s personal bodyguard, which was formed by Henry VII after the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. After Henry VIII became king in 1509, he decreed that a small party of the Yeomen of the Guard should be stationed at the Tower permanently. Today, Yeoman Warders must have served a minimum of 22 years’ military service and reached the rank of warrant officer before they can apply for the role.

The Tower hosts several regular ceremonies, one of the oldest of which is the nightly locking up of the Tower, or Ceremony of the Keys. Probably dating from the completion of the outer walls in around 1280, the ceremony involves the Chief Yeoman Warder, accompanied by an armed escort, locking and securing the gates and doors to the Tower. Once completed, the King’s Keys are handed to the Tower Governor for safe keeping overnight. The timing of the ceremony was set at 10pm in 1826 on the orders of the Duke of Wellington and is carried out every night without fail. Other important ceremonies include the swearing in of Yeoman Warders, which features a toast of port served in an 18th century pewter bowl, and the Constable’s Dues, whereby every Royal Navy vessel that moors at Tower Wharf must present the Constable of the Tower with a barrel of wine, brandy or rum.

Comment

The several different elements which make up the design of the miniature sheet make it one of the best designed sheets of recent times, in my view.

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