Ceremony of the Keys

Last night some of us got to go to the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London. My first time at church here, the American Relief Society President told us that we had to do it. Thankfully, Megan (who's in the picture with me) had heard about it from her chemistry professor and took initiative to get us tickets. You have to mail an actual letter to the people telling them you'd like to go, and which dates you're available. You have to do it months in advance, and if you're approved for your dates, then they'll mail you a ticket. So we mailed a letter in back in September, and we got to go last night. It was so cool!

The ceremony has taken place every night at the Tower of London since the 1300s. It takes place at precisely 9:53 pm and it's a ceremony to lock the gates at the tower of London. I did find this little fact on wikipedia though

As with many events of ceremony in the United Kingdom, it takes some significant outside influence to interrupt the Ceremony of the Keys. The one time when the ceremony was interrupted was during the Second World War, when there was an air raid on London, and a number of incendiary bombs fell on the old Victorian guardroom just as the Chief Yeoman Warder and the escort were coming through the Bloody Towerarchway. The shock and the noise of the bombs falling blew over the escort and the Chief Yeoman Warder, but they stood up, dusted themselves down, and carried on. The Tower holds a letter from the Officer of the Guard apologising to King George VI that the ceremony was late, along with a reply from the King which says that the officer is not to be punished as the delay was due to enemy action.

At 9:53 a man comes down the lane with a lantern in one hand and the keys in the other. There are four guards standing underneath the Bloody Tower, three armed with weapons, one not. He takes the lantern and gives it to the guard that is not armed, and they all walk back down the lane and lock up two of the gates. As they come back down the lane, a sentry walks toward them and this goes down:

Sentry: Who comes there?

Chief Warder: The Keys

S: Whose keys?

CW: Queen Elizabeth's keys. (identifying the keys as being those of the current monarch)

S: Pass Queen Elizabeth's keys. All's well.

After this we followed them through the Bloody Tower archway (where the princes were killed in history) into the fortress and halted at the bottom of the boardwalk steps. On the stairs are the guards, and under the commanding officer they present arms. The clock strikes ten and one of the guards plays a song on the trumpet. And they all say

God Preserve Queen Elizabeth. Amen!

We also learned that 130 people live at the Tower of London, and those guards have 48 hour duties at the Tower, Buckingham Palace and somewhere else that I can't remember.

They said it is one of the shortest and oldest ceremonies. Glad I could witness it! Cause the beefeater that led us was making fun of America the whole time- he said that some random American guy buying the London Bridge and putting it in Arizona finally gave our country some history.