Burials below the fortress are rewriting plague history.

For centuries, the Tower of London symbolized power, punishment, and royal authority, not mass death. Yet recent excavations beneath its grounds have exposed graves that complicate everything historians assumed about who suffered during the Black Death. These findings suggest plague mortality did not spare elites as neatly as records imply. Archaeologists are now piecing together physical evidence that challenges written accounts, burial customs, and class assumptions. What lies beneath the Tower forces a reexamination of how medieval London endured catastrophe.



