Thanks to everyone who’s been sharing their well-wishes and memories of Merlina

We’ve also been receiving a lot of questions (“why do you keep ravens at the Tower?”, “is the kingdom in danger?”) so we thought: time for a raven refresher! (1/10)

Although it’s believed that wild ravens have been flapping around the Tower for many centuries, the story behind why we actually keep ravens here today goes like this… (2/10)

Back in the 1670s Charles II appointed a young astronomer named John Flamsteed as his Royal Observator, and granted him use of a turret of the White Tower as an observatory

(This one, which to this day is known as the Flamsteed Turret) (3/10)

According to the legend, Flamsteed soon found that the nesting ravens he had to share his turret with were obstructing the views through his telescopes and interfering with his work, so he asked the king to evict them. (4/10)

At first Charles was happy to do so, until someone pointed out that getting rid of the ravens would surely be a bad omen: these birds had always been at the Tower, and were an important symbol of national stability (5/10)

Given the run of bad luck the country had experienced in recent decades (civil war, plague and The Great Fire of London for a start), Charles apparently wasn’t willing to take any chances. (6/10)

So instead of banishing the birds, Charles had the smart idea of instigating the original 'Rule of Six'. He issued a royal decree, stating that:

Six ravens should be kept at the Tower forevermore!

(7/10)

And the really juicy bit:

If the ravens do ever leave, the Tower will crumble into dust and a great harm will befall the kingdom…

(8/10)

John Flamsteed flounced off to his new purpose-built Royal Observatory at Greenwich, and the ravens have been the symbolic guardians of the Tower of London ever since! (9/10)

Today, our current Ravenmaster Chris Skaife ( @ravenmaster1) ensures that we always have the required six ravens in residence, plus one or two spares.

We now have seven ravens, so you can rest assured that the Tower and the kingdom is still safe (10/10)