Ex tibris C. K. OGDEN DAMAGE TO PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE. Abonfc a week ago two portraits of Royal personages I of the Georgian period in the private portion of Windsor ! fastle were found to have been cut with a knife. Since (.hen another painting has been injured in a similar manner. The mischief is totally unconnected with the fcdmission of the public to the State aDartments* - QUEEN VICTORIA. From the Statue by J. E. Boehm, R.A. JUBILEE EDITION WINDSOR CASTLE With a T)e script ion of the Tarl^, Town, and Neighbourhood By W. J. LOFTIE, B.A., F.S.A. Author of ' A History of London f ' Memorials of the Savoy] LONDON SEELEY & Co. 46, 47, & 48 ESSEX STREET, STRAND 1887 All rights reserved Detricatea BY SPECIAL PERMISSION TO HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA . 1063S93 CONTENTS. I. GENERAL VIEW. Par C Windsor Castle and the Tower of London compared The Geo- graphical Situation of Windsor Origin of the Name The Mound The Manor of Clewer Windsor Castle a Half Hide in Clewer The Descendants of the Conqueror at Windsor New Windsor The Honour of Windsor The Constable The Environs The Scenery of the Park The Picturesque Aspect of the Castle Wyatville . . . i II. Edward the Confessor at Old Windsor Forged Deeds The Grant to Westminster William the Conqueror at New Windsor The Norman Castle Henry I. The Constables Wars of John The Braoses Magna Charta Henry III. His Buildings His Treachery to the Citizens of London . 23 III. A Tournament Birth of Edward III. Renovation of the Castle The Round Tower and the Round Table Royal Prisoners The Founders of the Order of the Garter The Death of Philippa Richard II. at Windsor His Farewell to Queen Isabel Plot at Windsor against Henry IV. James of Scot- landThe Heart of St. George Birth of Henry VI. Edward IV. His Body Examined Visit of the King of Castile Henry VIII. The Earl of Surrey Burial-place of Henry VIII. and Queen Jane Seymour 49 vi Contents. IV. Page Early Views of ihe Castle Queen Elizabeth's Boethius Norden's View The Dragon's Fountain James I. Old Descriptions The Parliamentary Army Charles I. a Prisoner His Burial Examination of his Remains in 1813 Cromwell at Wind- sorThe Alterations under Charles II. The Star Building Pepys at Windsor The Pope's Nuncio The Duke of Gloucester's Death Improvements under William III. Queen Anne .... . . . ... 78 V. George III. at Windsor Madame d'Arblay's 'Diary' Her Short Sight Topography of the Castle The State Apart- ments The Queen's Lodge Court Life Herschel Dis- comfort of the House The King's Illness Queen Charlotte at Frogmore James Wyatt Sir Jeffry Wyatville His Merits and Faults as an Architect The ' Restoration ' of Windsor Castle Death of George IV 104 VI. The Chapel Royal of St. George The Old Chapel of St. Edward Wolsey's Tomb-house The Sarcophagus The Pope's Nuncio at Windsor The Royal Vault George the Third's Family Positions of the Royal Coffins Some Royal Fu- neralsThe Prince Consort's Family Memorial The Tomb- house Transformed The Mausoleum at Frogmore The First Chapel of St. George 128 VII. The Chapel of Edward III. The College The Knights- Bishop Beauchamp The New Chapel of St. George Burials Sir Reginald Bray Description of the Vaulting Some of the Monuments George III. 'restores' the Chapel West's Transparency Willement's Improvements Sir Gilbert Scott's Work Notice of some remarkable Deans Spalato Matthew Wren 155 Contents. vii VIII. Page The Town of New Windsor First Signs of Life An Unfree Town Its Troubles The Charter of Edward I. The Guild of the Holy Trinity Windsor in Shakespeare's Time The Scenery of 'The Merry Wives' The Town Hall- Sir Christopher Wren, M.P. St. John's Church . . .185 IX. The Home Park Herne's Oak Datchet Mead Datchet Iver Church Langley Church, Almshouses, and Library Upton Church Salt Hill Eton College Gray and Stoke Poges Burnham Beeches The Northern and the Southern Environs of Windsor contrasted ...... 209 The Great Park The Long Walk The Statue of George III. View from Snow Hill The Trees Cumberland Lodge The Sandbys Virginia Water The Ruins Belvidere Wood Bishopsgate Holloway College Ascot The Church The Race-Course The Southern Environs of Windsor 239 . xr. The Antiquity of Windsor Castle as a Residence A Storehouse of Works of Art The State Apartments The Private Apartments The Library The Gold Room Old Furniture The Long Corridor The Dining Room The Drawing Rooms Fdward III.'s Tower General Gordon's Bible Conclusion 264 ILLUSTRATIONS. QUEEN VICTORIA. From the Statue by J. E. Boehm, R.A. Frontispiece WINDSOR CASTLE FROM ROMNEY LOCK . . Page 5 THE ROUND TOWER FROM THE GARDEN OF THE DEAN AND CANONS 9 WINDSOR CASTLE FROM THE BROCAS . . . J 9 OLD WINDSOR CHURCH 27 THE CLOISTERS AND THE DEANERY . . . -35 THIS NORMAN GATEWAY 41 THE NORMAN GATE 43 THE HUNDRED STEPS . . . . . -45 A BIT FROM THAMES STREET 47 THE LOWER WARD -53 INTERIOR OF THE GREAT HALL . . . . -55 SKETCH IN THE STEWARD'S ROOM . , -57 SECTION OF THE INTERIOR OF THE ROUND TOWER . 59 THE KITCHEN COURT, WINDSOR CASTLE . . 6 1 HENRY VIII.'S GATE 73 KING JOHN'S TOWER .82 FIREPLACE IN THE LIBRARY . . . -85 SKETCH OF WINDOW AND SHUTTER IN PRISON ROOM IN NORMAN TOWER . .... 89 CONTENTS. Page THE PORTCULLIS IN THE NORMAN TOWER ... 89 PRISON ROOM ABOVE THE NORMAN TOWER ... 93 ORIEL IN THE LIBRARY IOI WINDSOR CASTLE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY . .105 STAIRCASE AND CORRIDOR IN THE ROUND TOWER . IIQ NORTH TERRACE AND WINCHESTER TOWER . . .122 ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL . . . . . .129 AN ANCIENT CORNER OF THE CLOISTERS . . -134 THE MEMORIAL CHAPEL FROM THE CLOISTERS . . 137 ONE BAY OF THE MEMORIAL CHAPEL .... 14! ALBERT MEMORIAL CHAPEL 145 INTERIOR OF THE MEMORIAL CHAPEL . . . 149 ROYAL MAUSOLEUM 151 DUCHESS OF KENT'S MAUSOLEUM, FROGMORE . . 152 ENTRANCE TO THE HORSESHOE CLOISTER . . . 159 ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL: THE CHOIR AND STALLS . . 161 THE HASTINGS CHAPEL 165 THE BRAY CHAPEL AND OLIVER KING'S CHANTRY . 169 THE ROYAL CLOSET 173 INTERIOR OF ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL . . . -177 GARGOYLES, ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL . . . .180 WINDSOR CASTLE FROM THE BERKSHIRE SHORE . . l8l THE CURFEW TOWER 1 88 WINDSOR CASTLE FROM THAMES STREET . . -195 BITS OF OLD MARKET STREET, WINDSOR . . -199 WINDSOR TOWN-HALL FROM THE HIGH STREET . . 2O2 DATCHET .... 210 CONTENTS. Page ALMSHOUSES AT LANGLEY 215 VIEW FROM THE TERRACE OF THE CASTLE . . .219 LIBRARY AT LANGLEY 222 ETON COLLEGE 227 STOKE POGES CHURCH 231 GRAY'S TOMB -233 BURNHAM BEECHES 235 WINDSOR PARK . . . . . . .241 THE LONG WALK 245 WINDSOR PARK 249 CUMBERLAND LODGE . . . . . -253 ARTIFICIAL RUINS AT VIRGINIA WATER . . -255 DEER IN WINDSOR PARK 259 THE CURFEW TOWER BEFORE RESTORATION . . 265 WEST END OF THE INNER CLOISTERS . . . .267 THE CLOISTER GARTH 269 THE INNER CLOISTERS 270 THE STATE STAIRCASE 277 ST. GEORGE'S HALL 283 THE CORRIDOR 287 THE GREEN DRAWING-ROOM 291 WINDSOR. i. General Windsor Castle and the Tower of London compared The Geographical Situation of Windsor Origin of the Name The Mound The Manor of Clewer Windsor Castle a Half Hide in Clewer The Descendants of the Conqueror at Windsor New Windsor The Honour of Windsor The Constable The Environs The Scenery of the Park The Picturesque Aspect of the Castle Wyatville. IT would be very easy to institute a comparison between Windsor Castle and the Tower of London. Both owe their origin to William the Conqueror ; both figure in history as alternately places of imprisonment, fortresses, palaces, and finally as the site of royal tombs. But while the associations which connect themselves in our minds with the Tower of London are mainly of a gloomy character, those which group themselves round Windsor Castle are cheerful. There are, it is true, WINDSOR. dark scenes in its history ; sorrow is more insepar- able from human life than joy. Windsor held many captives in the early years of its existence : Robert Mowbray, some time Earl of Northumberland, was imprisoned here by William Rufus, and died a prisoner after thirty years of confinement ; and he was the first of many. But this is only one aspect of the history of the Castle, and it is not the common one. When we visit the stateliest palace in Europe we are more apt to think of the chapters of the Garter, of the entertainment of foreign poten- tates, of the tournaments and processions, of the royal marriages and royal christenings, than of prisoners, or deaths, or funerals. Windsor stands to English history in an ornamental light. The scenes enacted here have been scenes of high cere- monial, of splendour, of royal pomp and magnificence, which throw into the shade the more gloomy events. Nevertheless, they must not be ignored ; and we must keep in mind that Windsor Castle was first a fortress and a palace afterwards, and also that among the stately ceremonials which have taken place in the Chapel of St. George have not un- frequently been royal funerals. The situation of Windsor Castle is in itself GENERAL VIEW. most happy. After we pass the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park, there is no elevation of equal height on the western road before we reach Windsor, at twenty-one miles distance. Unlike some of the hills in sight, such as Harrow or Hampstead. the eminence on which the Castle stands is formed of chalk, a fragment of the white range which seems to have strayed across the Thames into Berkshire, while south from it stretches the beautiful sandy district covered in many places by ancient forest trees alternating with open, breezy heaths which is known as Snow Hill and Cooper's Hill, Bagshot and Ascot. Over them all once extended the great Windsor Forest, 120 miles in circumference, through which Saxon and Norman kings hunted the deer, the wolf, and the wild boar. It is now almost all enclosed, but here and there a wild common or a hurst of old oaks remains to tell of its former state. As we pass northward through the Great Park, the hill rises steeply before us, and the Thames makes a great bend so as almost to surround it. This, according to most authorities, is the 'winding shore,' the ' Windesoveres' of Geoffrey Gaimar, the ' Winlesoren ' of King Edward, the 'Windesores' of Domesday, the ' Windleshore ' of WINDSOR. Henry III. The derivation is more than doubtful. The name was applied originally to Old Windsor only, and has, most probably, some connexion with the not very distant Windlesham, which is pro- nounced ' Winsham.' In Anglo-Saxon, ' windle ' is a willow, and 'ofer' is a shore; but 'windle' may refer to the winding course of the Thames, and ' ofer ' may have been softened into ' oure,' and eventually 'or.' There is a river or brook called the Windles, which runs into the Thames at Chertsey; but Chertsey is too far from Windsor to allow of the connexion which Harrison, in the ' Description of Britain ' prefixed to his edition of Hollinshead, would appear to attempt. As we shall see a little farther on, no physical feature of the modern Windsor can be taken into account in stating these questions, because, though the name is borrowed from the neighbouring parish, the town and the castle really stand in Clewer. Although, then, before the Norman Conquest the great chalk bluff in Clewer, which stood between the vast Berkshire forest and the Thames, had on it no royal palace and was flanked by no town, there is reason to believe that it was crowned by an earthwork of considerable importance. A similar GENERAL VIEW. but smaller mound is close by across the river, and is known as Salt Hill, and a third is, or was not very long ago, a little farther east at Langley. In the early days of the Saxon occupation of England, each family was isolated. A general government grew up by degrees ; but the first settlers' first business was to provide for their own safety, and the safety of their slaves and their cattle. For this purpose in some places they made moats, in some mounds, in some both moats and mounds. All alike were called ' buries.' The mound, says Mr. George Clark, in his exhaustive work on ' Mediaeval Military Architecture,' was not intended for the defence of a tribe or territory, nor for the accommodation of fighting men ; it was the centre and defence of a private estate, for the residence of the lord and his household, and for the protection of his tenants. Such mounds are almost innumerable in England, and a large number of them were used by the Con- queror and his successors as sites for the keeps of their castles. The Saxon buildings were of wood, and have everywhere perished, though the earth- works which supported the palisades remain ; and at Windsor, as at Arundel, the mound with its ditch appears to be the central feature of a plan WINDSOR. consisting of two base courts, connected by the mound in the centre. Of the early history of the holding or manor we know very little. It was among the posses- sions of the ill-fated Harold, and we may, perhaps, reckon him as its first royal resident ; but at the time of the Domesday Survey, Clewer was the land of Radulphus, the son of Seifride, and its inter- mediate history, so far as documentary evidence is concerned, is a blank. We may, however, judging from the history of other places, make up a kind of working theory to fit it. The manor consisted, according to the Survey, of five hides. With Harold's other estates it became the property of the Conqueror, by whom it was granted, with a certain reservation, to Radulphus, who was probably a Norman, though the name of Ralph, as Professor Freeman has pointed out, was not unknown among the English. Seifride's name has a very English look, answering as it does to the modern German Sigfried ; still it is safer, as we know so little, to assume that Ralph, the grantee of Clewer, 'came over with the Conqueror.' In the same Domesday Survey are two other mentions of Windsor ; one of them is in the account of Drayton, a manor in the THE ROUND TOWER, FROM THE GARDEN OF THE DEAN AND CANONS. GENERAL VIEW. adjoining county, Buckinghamshire. Drayton, we read, was held from Lewin of Neweham, by a certain Radulphus, whose surname is given as ' Passaquam.' He was bound to provide two armed men for the guard at Windsor. It would be going too far to identify Ralph Passaquam .with Ralph, the son of Seifride, still the connexion of the name with Windsor is, to say the least, curious. The other mention of Windsor relates to the history of a certain Azor, who had been a steward (dispensator) in the reign of Edward the Confessor. William sent a writ relating to him from Windsor. When William granted the manor of Clewer to Ralph, he made, as I have said, a reservation. Harold had owned five hides, Ralph only held four and a half. King William kept the chalk hill, with its ancient earthworks, in his own hands. How much a hide was in Berkshire at that time I cannot tell ; as a rule, however, we may reckon it at some- thing under sixty acres, including the uncultivated land. If the earthwork covered about thirteen acres, it will be seen that there was very little land adjoining in the King's possession ; but this did not matter, because he already owned the manor of Old Windsor, and by taking the ' bury ' of the WINDSOR. Clewer manor from it, and making himself a castle and residence close to Old Windsor, he naturally gave his castle the name, not of the parish or manor in which it was actually situated, but that of the original royal residence close by from which he removed the court. From the first the new castle was called after the old palace. It was never Clewer Castle, always Windsor Castle. As Domes- day says, after mentioning that Harold had five hides and Ralf has four and a half, 'et castellum de Windesores est in dimidio hida;' the Castle of Windsor is on the remaining half hide. The royal residence thus founded is the subject of these chapters. It was destined to be the scene of many great events in our history. William had other and greater castles, yet, with the single excep- tion of the Tower of London, none is so intimately connected with the fate of his descendants. In the eight hundred years that have passed since he reserved the half-hide in Clewer, and removed Windsor thither, it has been alternately their palace, their prison, and their burial-place. Strange to say, we hear little of it at any time as a fortress. It was twice besieged and once surrendered under John, and Edward I. improved its defences. But GENERAL VIEW. it was always much more a palace than a castle and it is by no means certain what kind of keep, if any, covered the central mound before the reign of Edward III. In the lapse of centuries Windsor grew greater almost year by year. The descendants of its founder appear in it as on a stage, sometimes in mighty state, sometimes in sorrow, sometimes in danger; and hither we shall see the bodies of many of them brought to a last resting-place. At Windsor Henry I. married his second wife, and Henry II. compared himself to an eagle pursued by his own offspring. Here John came when Magna Charta was signed; and here Edward III. was born. Here the first chapter of the oldest and noblest Order of European knighthood was held. Here the Black Prince married the Fair Maid of Kent, and Froissart saw the King mourning for Queen Philippa. David Bruce and James Stuart, kings of Scotland, were here imprisoned, and the young Earl of March, heir to the English crown. In spite of his father's gloomy foreboding, Henry VI. was born at Windsor, and passed every winter in the Castle while he was a child. His 'holy shade' lingers rather at Eton beyond the river than in his birth-place. Edward IV. is more conspicuous at Windsor. He made the WINDSOR. beautiful chapel, and lies buried in it himself, the first of a long line of kings; but Richard III. brought hither the body of Henry VI., and the rivals rest side by side. Henry VII. vaulted the chapel, and built the Tomb House for himself, and though he is buried at Westminster, Henry VIII., his son, lies under his father's chapel at Windsor 'by his true and loving wife Queen Jane.' Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, were at Windsor on their last melan- choly journey to their fiery martyrdom at Oxford. The great Elizabeth loved the place, and did not Shakespeare immortalise the ' Merry Wives of Windsor' at her Grace's express command? Her successor was often here, and made that strange character, Antonio de Dominis, Dean. One snowy afternoon in February, 1649, the 'White King's' headless body was laid without funeral rites in the grave of Henry VIII. Cromwell saved the Castle, and Dean Wren saved the records of the Garter, and Wren's more famous son built what are still the State apartments for Charles II. William III. was at Windsor when the poor boy, his nephew, the hope of the nation, celebrated his last birthday, and almost on the morrow sickened and died. Queen Anne pursued the deer in the Park in a one-horse GENERAL VIEW. 15 chaise ; and Cumberland, under the first Georges, retired to his ranger's lodge to sulk. Windsor was in decay when George III. made it his chief resi- dence, and everyone remembers Madame D'Arblay's account of the discomfort endured by the royal family and their courtiers. George IV. lived in a lodge in the Park while Wyatville made the old Castle what it is now and gave it the outline so familiar to all Englishmen. Besides the Castle itself, there is much in its immediate neighbourhood to engage the attention. It has long been the habit of topographical writers to mention the town of New Windsor with con- tempt. But, though not very beautiful, it is by no means to be despised. No town can be very ugly which has the Thames winding round it and the woods of the Great Park in the background. There are, it is true, not many pretty buildings, but Wren designed the Town Hall, and it is an excellent specimen of his style. Some modern rows of villas are not very pleasing, but now that Windsor has become practically a suburb of London, we cannot wonder. It takes less time to reach Windsor by train than it took to reach Kensington by road a hundred years ago. The neighbourhood of the 1 6 WINDSOR. Great Park must always be a charm to attract sojourners; and little towns, which till lately were but hamlets and villages, are springing up all round it. It would not be easy at the present day to define the 'Honour of Windsor;' but a few cen- turies ago the words had a very distinct meaning, and all the country for many miles on both sides of the Thames was comprehended within its boun- daries. The ' Castle Court ' had jurisdiction from Maidenhead Bridge to Egham, taking in places as far north as Beaconsfield. On the south it ex- tended to within two miles of Guildford, and comprised twenty-four parishes in Berkshire, seven- teen in Buckinghamshire, and eighteen in Surrey ; but the town of New Windsor was expressly ex- cepted from it. The Constable of Windsor Castle had within the Honour a place 'of very great antiquity, honour, power, and pleasure, but of very little profit.' So wrote Sir Bulstrode Whitelock, in 1660, to Lord Mordaunt, whom Charles II. had appointed Constable. This great officer had juris- diction as judge for trial of suits of any value aris- ing within the Honour. He appointed a. steward, or deputy, to hear and determine cases, and licensed attorneys to practise before him. Furthermore, he GENERAL VIEW. 17 was Keeper of the Forest and had the care of vert and venison, and power to hunt as he thought fit, ' not prejudicing the King's pleasure.' There was a prison within the Castle called the ' Coalhouse,' to which he could commit offenders. He was allowed to use any lodgings or rooms in the Castle, ' whereof the King hath not present use.' Such was the ' Honour of Windsor,' in the seventeenth century. A little earlier the Constable had even greater powers, and was the judge of felonies as well as offences against the game-laws. His court was held at the outer gate-house, and its records went back at least to the reign of Richard II. It will be best in the following chapters not to stray so far afield as the utmost verge of the Honour, but to confine ourselves to the places which lie near at hand. It is easy, with Windsor as a centre, to make excursions to see some of the most pleasant landscapes in England. The view from Cooper's Hill is famous. It has the ad- vantage of including the Castle, with a beautiful foreground of wood. Another well-known view is from the statue on Snow Hill, at the extremity of the Long Walk. The foreground here is formed of some noble beeches. Three miles farther south is c 1 8 WINDSOR. Virginia Water, one of the largest artificial lakes in England, surrounded by luxuriant foliage. At Old Windsor the windings of the river, with Anker- wyke in the foreground and Cooper's Hill behind, have long been favourite subjects with artists. Datchet on the opposite bank still retains some of the aspect of a country village. Langley Church is well worth a visit, if only to see the curious library attached to it. Upton Church, with its ivy-clad tower, contends with Stoke Poges for the honour of having inspired Gray. Slough is not a very lovely town, but here Herschel set up his great telescope ; and a very pretty walk across fields from it takes us to Gray's Stoke Poges, and a longer walk to his Burnham Beeches. At Burnham itself is a village more primitive in appearance than any other I re- member so near London. In the church are many monuments, among them one to a certain Went- worth who had to beg pardon of the House of Commons on his knees for proposing to inquire into Queen Elizabeth's civil list. A little farther south is Burnham Abbey, where he lived ; and close to the Thames is Dorney, then, and still, the seat of the Palmers. On the right bank is St. Leonard's Hill, where more than one great statesman has GENERAL VIEW. resided, and whence one of the best views of the Castle may be obtained. A little farther off is Bil- lingbear, once a seat of the Neviles ; and beyond it again, Bray, whose Vicar has eclipsed the juster fame of the great architect who designed the roof of St. George's Chapel. Binfield is sacred to Alexander Pope, for there he wrote his early poem on Windsor Forest. With such surroundings Windsor is the happiest hunting-ground of the English artist. Some there are who prefer grand scenery abroad to the lawns, and woods, and spires of our native land ; but in all the world there is nothing so pleasing as 'English park-landscape/ as the Americans call it; and nowhere can it be studied to such advantage as here. It is not till we have travelled that we can fully appreciate its loveliness. The brown hills of Spain, even though the Sierra Nevada is behind them ; the full, strong colours of the Mediterranean coast ; the glassy coldness of the Alps ; the warm pink and yellow of Egypt, to go no farther, do not give the same thrill of artistic delight. One tires of all other scenery, but not of this. The Castle itself, artistically considered, is a little disappointing. Some of the old views by Sandby and by Hakewill, and others who drew at WINDSOR. the beginning of the present century, show elements of picturesqueness which now only linger about the courts behind the Chapel. In the Upper Ward everything is spick and span ; even the oldest build- ings are re-faced. The Round Tower, which we would associate with Edward III. and the fair Lady Salisbury and the Order of the Garter, only dates, as we see it, from the time of George IV. Still, we must not be too exacting in this respect. The grand outline, as seen from a distance, is due to Wyatville ; whatever there is of dignity in the com- position is his work. The front towards the Long Walk has been criticised for its balance and sym- metry ; but it had always some such appearance, as we gather from the most ancient views. The great central feature, the Round Tower, was invisible from this side till Wyatville gave it its present proportions. Nevertheless, it must be allowed that the alterations he carried out went far to justify the epigram quoted by Mr. Thorne : ' Let George, whose restlessness leaves nothing quiet, Change if he will the good old name of Wyatt : But let us hope that their united skill May not make Windsor Castle Wyatville.' II. Edward the Confessor at Old Windsor Forged Deeds The Grant to Westminster William the Conqueror at New Windsor The Norman Castle Henry I. The Con- stablesWars of John The Braoses Magna Charta Henry III. His Buildings His Treachery to the Citizens of London. THAT Edward the Confessor resided at Old Windsor, at least occasionally, is certain from the dates of documents, and from the asser- tions of almost contemporary historians. One of the documents in question is a grant of land in Somerset to Gisa, bishop of Wells, and was signed and attested at ' Wendlesore.' The copy of the parchment is of later date, and, as is the case with an enormous mass of mediaeval charters, it may be a forgery. It occurs among the Cottonian manu- scripts at the British Museum, and Kemble doubted its genuineness. Another document, of the authen- ticity of which there can be no doubt, is unfortu- nately without the year, though it was ' made at Windleshora on the fourth day of the Paschal W T eek,' and was witnessed by Queen Eadgitha, or WINDSOR. Edith, and by Earl Godwin and Earl Harold. In a third document mention is also made of Windsor. It is a long and pompous deed, of very questionable character, in which Edward is made to recapitulate many of the events of his reign, to refer to his pro- jected visit to Rome, and to give, in satisfaction of his vow, a number of estates, one of them being Windsor, to the Abbey of Westminster. The date is December, 1065, the month before the King's death, the year before the conquest by the Normans. Fortunately, however, we have a shorter charter un- dated, in old English, easily turned into our modern language with the exception of a sentence or two, of the trustworthiness of which there can be no question. As an example it may be quoted whole, a few words only being altered : ' Eadward Kynge greet all mine bishops, mine earls, mine thegns on Barrocscire [Berkshire] on Middlesex friendly : I kith [make known to] you that I have given Christ and St. Peter into Westmynstre Windlesoran and Stane [Staines] and all that thereto berth [belongs] within burh and without, with sac and with soc, with toll and with team, and with infangthief, on wood and on field, by strand and by land, on street and off street, and on all things so full and so forth as they stood with myself [as fully and as extensively as I myself held them], and I will THE GRANT TO WESTMINSTER. 25 not suffer that there any man any power shall have or any thing but the Abbot and monks for St. Peter's need. God you heal.' Such are the terms of the grant, which resembles more the curt directness of some of the Conqueror's charters than the long-winded bombast in which the native English kings were wont on these occasions to indulge. It was evidently towards the close of the reign of the Confessor that the grant was made ; and the date of the larger deed, ' this fifth of the Kalends of January, 1066,' or, as we should say, 'the 28th December, 1065,' may very well be correct, as that was the day of the consecration of the great church at Westminster, the completion of which, far more than the good government of his kingdom, had been Edward's chief object in life. He was already so ill that he could not attend the ceremony, and he died on the 5th January. It is not very easy to determine with any cer- tainty the exact situation in Old Windsor of the house of King Edward. Yet the place is as little changed since his day as any place of the kind can be. The Thames still winds past the low, green meadows ; the great trees still hang over the water ; 26 WINDSOR. the weir and the ferry and the fishing-ground re- main where they were. The ninety houses of the Survey have partly disappeared, and there is now no well-defined village. It is impossible to imagine a sleepier little place. The road from the ferry winds through it between brick walls and palisades, and there is a perfume of flowers and of the leaves of aromatic shrubs. You come suddenly on the old, plain church, and remember that a church was on the spot probably a wooden building as early as the reign of the Confessor ; and long before, no doubt. Near the church may be traced the moat of Tile Place Farm. It is not quadrangular, nor is it very large, nor is it, again, even traditionally, the Manor House ; yet here, according to many authori- ties, was the ' palace ' of Edward the Confessor. In fine weather Old Windsor is a pleasant and quiet nook, surrounded by the scenes of all kinds of great events, yet itself without anything, except its own simple beauty, to excite the interest of the traveller. One of the daughters of George III. made herself a residence here, at first a mere tea- cottage, afterwards a house ; but there are very few monuments of interest in the church, and what is left of the village consists chiefly of small isolated WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. houses, with pretty gardens and tall trees. The parish is very small, but there is, or was, an out- OLD WINDSOR CHURCH. lying district beyond the Great Park. So utterly has the original Windsor been eclipsed by the half hide on the hill above it, in the parish of Clewer, upon which William built his castle, that after this WINDSOR. point in history Windsor means the Castle of the Conqueror and the town which grew up at its foot. Yet William must certainly for a short time have made it his residence, and it is not always possible to decide whether charters and writs were dated from the Old or the New Windsor. William took Old Windsor into his own hands from the first, on account of ' the pleasantness of the situation/ as he says, and compensated the Abbot and monks of Westminster by the gift of two manors in Essex and certain other lands. Exchanges to which a king of England was one of the parties as in this case, and as in the case of Hyde Park and its ap- purtenances in the reign of Henry VIII. were not unfrequently of a somewhat one-sided character. ' On the day King Edward was alive and dead,' as the usual formula in the Domesday Book ex- presses it, then, Old Windsor was owned by the monks of the newly finished Abbey of Westminster, and the neighbouring Manor of Clewer was the estate of the new King Harold. As Harold had been earl of that part of the kingdom which lay south of the Thames from beyond Oxford to Chert- sey, the stronghold on the chalk hill in the great bend of the river must have been a conveniently THE NORMAN CASTLE. 29 situated place of residence, the more so on account of its nearness to the occasional dwelling of King Edward at Old Windsor. But it was probably the forest which determined William of Normandy in his choice of it for one of his castles. There is less mention of New Windsor in the chronicles of the time than of many other fortresses not so im- portant in later years. We do not know when William first began to build on the Saxon earth- works. Several of his charters and other acts are dated at Windsor ; but we have no means of making sure which Windsor is meant until we come to the line as to the Castle, quoted from the Domesday Survey in our last chapter. From that time there is no doubt. Norman re- mains, pointing to the existence of very extensive buildings on the south side of the Upper Ward, lead to the supposition that the quadrangle was completed, counting the mound as its western side. No Norman remains have been identified with cer- tainty in the Lower Ward, the oldest buildings only going back to the time of Henry III. Strange to say, it is impossible to find out what building, if any, W T illiam placed upon the mound. As it is 125 feet in diameter, there would be room for a con- 30 WINDSOR. siderable tower ; but no record of such a tower exists, and it is possible, and not altogether contrary to analogy, that nothing stronger than the Saxon palisade crowned it before the time of Henry III. Its height of 70 feet above the ditch would be a great element of strength in itself. There would, moreover, be nothing unusual in postponing the erection of a stone keep on the mound. Mr. Clark (' Mediaeval Military Architecture,' 42) is clear on the point, though he does not name Windsor as an example. The Normans, he says, where the site was old, and there was a mound, as at Lincoln, Huntingdon, Rockingham, Wallingford, or York, ' seem to have been content to repair the existing works, usually of timber only, and to have post- poned the replacing of them with a regular shell till a more convenient season, which in many cases did not occur for a century.' If any timber fortress in England was likely to be strong and well built, it would be at Clewer, where wood was plenty, and where so martial an earl as Harold was lord of the manor. Certain it is, that even in the reign of Edward III. no building of importance stood on the mound until he founded the Order of the Garter, and very few Norman remains were found THE NORMAN CASTLE. 31 when Wyatville dug into the chalk, and they were of a late type. Yet, whatever may have been the character of the fortification on the summit of the mound, there is now no doubt that the earliest builders of Windsor Castle chose not the Lower, but the Upper Ward, for their principal works ; and although nothing remains above ground of the Castle as it stood before the reign of Henry III., traces have been found in recent years of subter- raneous passages, with distinct features of Norman architecture, beneath the modern building on the southern and eastern sides of what are now the private apartments of the Sovereign. One of these, very nearly under the private entrance of the Castle, consists of a passage in the chalk which formerly constituted a secret outlet towards the ditch. Such passages are, of course, not generally accessible, and the ditch itself has been obliterated, at least on that side ; and as there are in numberless places, wherever a house of ancient date still stands, traditions of secret entrances and secret exits, the existence of one which is not only real and still extant, and which moreover leads through the royal residence itself, is well worth noting. William Rufus assembled a council at Windsor 32 WINDSOR. in 1095, and there imprisoned Mowbray when he had taken him in the north. It is impossible to say in what part of the Castle Mowbray lived out the remaining thirty years of his life ; but the King held his Christmas the next year at the Castle, and William, bishop of Durham, died there during the week's festivities. The King was back at Easter and Whitsuntide in the following year, and thence made his march into Wales. Henry I. also con- stantly visited Windsor, and is said by several authorities to have built the town, and to have greatly enlarged and improved the Castle. Henry also built a chapel, which he dedicated to Edward the Confessor, providing it with five priests, but without endowments, the priests being paid out of the Exchequer. This chapel in all probability stood on the site now covered by the Albert Memorial Chapel, formerly known as Wolsey's Tomb-house ; and it must have been here that, in 1121, Henry married his second wife, Adelicia of Louvain, the * Fair Maid of Brabant.' Henry must have been but a melancholy husband, if it is true that he never smiled after his son was drowned. He had been a widower for two years. The wedding was the cause of a singular dispute. Windsor at that time HENRY I. 33 was in the diocese of Salisbury, and Roger le Poor, then its bishop, was not the man to renounce any privilege which he possessed, or thought he pos- sessed. He claimed the right to perform the mar- riage, but the council decided that Ralph, the archbishop of Canterbury, should officiate. A similar contest took place during the Christ- mas festival in 1127. Henry received at Windsor the homage of all the great officials, both clergy and laity, whom he caused to swear allegiance to his daughter and heiress, the Empress Maud. As was usual on such occasions the coronation cere- mony was repeated, and Thurstan, archbishop of York, thought himself entitled to officiate, to the prejudice of William de Corboyl, the archbishop of Canterbury. He was, however, prevented, ' and his cross-bearer, who had carried his cross into the king's chapel, was turned out, together with the cross he was carrying.' The office of Constable of Windsor had been granted by the Conqueror to Walter Fitz-Other, the lord of the manor of Eton, on the opposite side of the Thames. His family assumed the surname of Windsor, and several of them seem to have enjoyed the office; but when, in 1153, the treaty of D 34 WINDSOR. Wallingford confirmed the peace between Henry, afterwards Henry II., and King Stephen, Windsor was delivered to the custody of Richard de Lucy. The mention of the fortress in Stephen's charter is peculiar. It is called Mota de Windsor. It would perhaps be going too far to assume that this means that the mound was not covered by a keep, but it increases the probability which I have already men- tioned ; and which is further strengthened by the fact that the Castle does not figure at all in the annals of Stephen's wars. It seems to have been a favourite residence of Henry II., and in his tenth year we read of the expenditure of 30^. on the kitchen. Henry here received the Irish ambas- sadors of Roderick, king of Connaught. and, 1185, he here knighted his son John previous to sending him on his expedition into Ireland. One of the chroniclers tells a sad tale connected with Henry's works at Windsor. ' It is recorded,' says Fabyan, 'that in a chambere at Wyndsore he caused to be painted an eagle, with four birds, whereof three of them all rased [scratched] the body of the old eagle, and the fourth was scratching at the old eagle's eyes. When the question was asked of him what thing that picture should signify ? it was an- HENRY II. 35 swered by him, " This old eagle," said he, " is myself ; and these four eagles betoken my four sons, the THE CLOISTERS AND THE DEANERY. which cease not to pursue my death, and especially my youngest son John, which now I love most, shall most especially await and imagine my death." ' 36 WINDSOR. John himself was destined to suffer much at Windsor. His father had left the buildings in good repair, and, during the absence on the Crusade of Richard I., it was handed over to the keeping of Bishop Pudsey of Durham, while the Tower of London was given similarly to his rival Longchamps, bishop of Ely, who was Chancellor ; but Pudsey was no match for Longchamps, who soon obtained pos- session of the Castle ; and, even after he had been once deprived of it, he took it again, and it was from Windsor that he made the memorable flight to the Tower which led to his temporary deposition. The Castle was placed in the custody of Walter, archbishop of Rouen. Walter was dispossessed of it by John, when he returned from France in 1193, but took it again after a short siege, and put some of its defenders to death, John retiring again to France. When he became King he was frequently here. In 1205 he writes hence to Reginald de Cornhill, an eminent London merchant, to send him two small casks of wine, and a book called the Romance of the History of England (' Romantium de Historia Anglorum '). It would be impossible, without un- duly prolonging the notice of this reign, to detail all John's doings at Windsor ; but two transactions MAGNA CHART A. 37 cannot be passed over. According to some of the chroniclers it was here and not at Corfe that the King starved Maud de Braose and her son to death. There are great discrepancies in the story, which, though it is told by many different historians, may be entirely false, although no one doubts that John, who certainly imprisoned some members of the Braose family at Windsor, was quite capable of such a crime. The second event of this reign with which Windsor is prominently connected is the granting of Magna Charta. Between Old Windsor and Staines, on the London Road, but within the boundaries of Surrey, is the flat meadow of Runimede. The towers of the Castle are visible from it, and John, during the conferences which preceded and followed the ratifi- cation of the charter, went backwards and forwards each day. The charter is dated, ' in prato quod vocatur Runimed] on the I5th June, but was pro- bably not signed before the 23rd, when the con- ference terminated. It has been asserted that the word Runimede signifies ' Council Meadow/ which would point to some previous meeting of the same kind there; and Edward the Confessor is said to have met his Witanagemot at the spot. But these WINDSOR. stories, like the identification of Magna Charta Island, are either conjecture or local tradition and very unsafe foundations for history. After the con- ference John remained three days longer at Windsor, whence he departed to Odiham. He was back at Windsor when he heard of the landing of Louis in 1216, and this was his last visit. One turns with relief from the reign of John ; but Henry III. made Windsor the scene of as shocking a piece of treachery as any ever perpe- trated by his father. When he had been five years on the throne and had reached the mature age of fifteen, he began to turn his attention to the repair of the Castle. Vast sums were spent in a few years, both here and at Westminster, on buildings. The old hall, which was among the Norman buildings in the Upper Ward, was abandoned for a new and larger one which stood in the Lower Ward, near the north-western corner of the cliff. It has been identified, in part, with the library of the Dean and Chapter, and the rest of Henry's domestic buildings seem to have been close by. Henry IV., when the ' King's house ' was once more in the Upper Ward, granted the site for canons' residences, and the HENRY III. 39 charmingly irregular and picturesque row of dwell- ings of various dates which lies north of the nave of St. George's Chapel, contains many relics of the time of Henry III. In 1272 he roofed the Keep, and, for aught we know to the contrary, he may have been the first to place a stone tower on the mound. His tower cannot, however, have been of a very substantial character, as Edward III. found no building on the mound suitable for the celebra- tions of the new Order of St. George. If Edward's own building, the Round Tower, was an improve- ment on its predecessor, Henry III. cannot have constructed anything of much importance, for until Wyatville raised it to its present height it was by no means worthy of its lofty and conspicuous situation. Instead of going minutely through the progress of Henry's works at Windsor, it will be best briefly to describe the probable appearance of the Castle when he first took it in hand, and again at the conclusion of his reign. The buildings as they stood when he inherited their possession had probably very slight and meagre defences on the west side towards the town. The outer ditch was shallow, and of towers along the wall we know nothing. It was, in fact, merely the first defence of what was literally 4 o WINDSOR. the outer court. A second ditch seems to have been drawn across the court, and I understand that Mr. Clark is inclined to think that the Horse Shoe Cloister marks an inner ring of the ancient earth- works. There was a deep ditch round the mound, and possibly the present so-called Norman Gate marks the principal entrance to the better fortified portion of the Castle. It was approached, no doubt, by a bridge and portcullis. Another gate stood on the south side, very near the modern George the Fourth's Gateway. It also was approached over the great ditch of the Castle by a bridge, and a third bridge is mentioned in early records. The eastern side of the upper quadrangle, as well as the northern and southern, probably contained apartments protected by towers. What is now a sunk garden and the eastern terrace was then a steeply-scarped cliff of chalk. The great hall of the Castle was in the Upper Ward, and the chamber used by the King's eldest son must have been on the north side. All these buildings, and whatever stood upon the mound, were at this time very much dilapidated. Except a small chapel we cannot speak with certainty of any buildings in the Lower Ward. When Henry had completed his alterations the THE NORMAN GATEWAY. HENRY III. 43 old walls of the Upper Ward were renewed and crenellated, and the chief residence of the King THE NORMAN GATE. transferred to the Lower Ward, which was divided longitudinally into two parts, the place of the present 44 WINDSOR. St. George's Chapel being occupied by the western end of a smaller chapel. The new great hall, the kitchen, and other domestic buildings, were con- nected with the Bell Tower at the north-west corner at one end, and with 'a certain apartment for the King's use,' which must have looked down over the steep cliff, where are now the Hundred Steps. Beside it, and under the same roof, were the Queen's apart- ments, and between them and the chapel there was a grass-plot. The chapel had a porch, a cloister, and a bell-tower. Part of the cloister still stands as it was then, and a portrait of the King, part of the painted decoration, was not long ago discovered and glazed over. This wall-painting, although it is unquestionably not unlike the King's portrait on his tomb at Westminster, may be the face of a sacred personage, other than the King, forming part of a large composition. It is within the arcade of Henry's work on the northern face of the old wall of what is now the Memorial Chapel. Another fragment is by the chapel door. On the town side of the Castle three great towers were built, and a postern made beneath them. On the north side, near the Keep, was a new tower, on the same site as that now known as HENRY III. 45 the Winchester Tower. A gateway was probably constructed at the same time, at or near the place now occupied by the Gateway of Henry VIII. The THE HUNDRED STEPS. fortifications on the south side of the Lower Ward were completed by a tower still known by the name of Henry III. All these buildings were handsomely 46 WINDSOR. decorated with painting and the windows filled with glass. In the latter years of Henry's reign some improvements v/ere made in the Upper Ward, where new rooms were built for the Queen, with an oratory and private chapel. In one of the new towers on the western side was possibly the dungeon, which Henry used for the imprisonment of the Londoners after the death of Earl Simon. Henry had a terrible quarrel with the citizens. They had long resisted his exactions, and among their number there was none who had carried himself so bravely towards the tyrant as Fitz-Thomas, the Mayor. When, in 1265, the King had been in a kind of semi-captivity in London, while Simon di Montfort governed the kingdom in his name, Fitz-Thomas had addressed to him in St. Paul's words which Henry took as a personal insult. When the battle of Evesham set him free to wreak his vengeance, he summoned the Mayor and the principal citizens to Windsor, giving them a safe-conduct. They set out on Friday, the 5th of October, 1265, to the number of forty, and reached Windsor in a couple of days. The King sent mes- sengers to say that he was not ready for them, but that they were -to enter the Castle, and that on the HENR Y III. 47 morrow they should learn his will. Upon this they entered, and were immediately taken to the Keep as prisoners, ' the letters of safe-conduct from the King availing them nought.' There they remained throughout that night and the next day. In the 4 S WINDSOR. evening the greater number of them were allowed to descend into the Lower Ward, where they were lodged ; but the Mayor and four of his companions were detained in the custody of ' Sir Edward le Fitz-Roy,' afterwards King Edward I. From this imprisonment it does not seem that Fitz-Thomas ever emerged ; the others were eventually released, but his name does not occur in the list of those pardoned some years later; and whether he died in the dungeons of the Clewer Tower or lived out a long imprisonment in the Keep on the mound, we have no further information about him. The King went to London and confiscated the houses and property of his principal enemies, and though the people clamouted for the Mayor of their choice they never beheld him again. That Henry, in spite of the magnificence of his buildings and the purity of his taste in art, was a worthy son of his father, King John, could be proved from this treacherous act alone. 49 III. A Tournament Birth of Edward III. Renovation of the Castle The Round Tower and the Round Table Royal Prisoners The Founders of the Order of the Garter The Death of Philippa Richard II. at Windsor His Farewell to Queen Isabel Plot at Windsor against Henry IV. James of Scotland The Heart of St. George Birth of Henry VI. Edward IV. His Body Examined Visit of the King of Castile Henry VIII. The Earl of Surrey Burial-place of Henry VIII. and Queen Jane Seymour. THE glories of the reign of Edward III. are connected more intimately with Windsor Castle than with any other place. Edward I., although his beautiful queen, Eleanor, seems to have resided much in the Castle, only visited it occa- sionally, and never kept a Christmas here. His two eldest sons were born at Windsor while Henry III. was still living, and they and their brother, Alphonso, all sesm to have died here. Prince Alphonso had reached the mature age of ten, and a marriage with a Spanish princess had been arranged for him. A Psalter illuminated with his arms and those of his intended bride is in the British Museum, and is interesting as giving us some early examples of E 50 WINDSOR. heraldic bearings. In the Record Office there is a roll describing the purchases made in preparation for a tournament at Windsor in July, 1278, when the boy was only five ; and among the payments is one of fifteen shillings for his shield, and another of forty pounds for his dress of coloured cloth, which may mean something of the nature of a tabard. This tournament is described as taking place in the Park, which probably means the Little Park, below the Castle, now traversed diagonally by the road to Datchet. The knights were dressed in leather armour, gilt or silvered, according to their rank, and wore crests also of leather, their swords being blunted so as to avoid injury. This is an early mention of crests, and whether they were figures of heraldic animals in cuir boulli, coloured and gilt, or were repetitions of the coat-of-arms, as in the nearly contemporary Louterell Psalter, I cannot say. Edward II. was more often at Windsor than his father, but the events of his reign do not greatly connect him with the place, except during 1312. In that year, on the 23rd November, at forty minutes past five in the morning, 'the 6 degree EDWARD III. of the sign Scorpio ascending, and the 18 degree of Leo culminating,' the young Queen Isabella, then only eighteen years of age, gave birth here to the prince who was destined to do so much for Windsor Castle. He was born on Monday and baptized on the following Thursday in the old chapel of St. Edward, being called after his father, and grandfather, and the royal saint, and having three bishops and four other great men as his god- fathers. He succeeded to the throne on the deposition of his unfortunate father in January, 1326, and from that time to the end of his long reign Windsor was the almost constant scene of tournaments, proces- sions, feasts, chapters, and assemblies, in which every- thing was subordinated to pomp and display. This is not the place to detail the history of the wars with France and Scotland, except in so far as they concern Windsor ; but here, we know, the royal and nible prisoners were conducted after each triumph, and here Edward celebrated each victory in the enlarged chapel. The old 'Aula Regis,' the King's palace in which he had been born, was given up to be the residence of the canons of a new ecclesiastical foundation, and St. George was associated with St. 52 WINDSOR. Edward the Confessor as the patron saint. At first a ' Warden,' or ' Gustos,' presided over the Chapter, but in the last year of the reign of Henry IV. his title was changed to ' Dean.' Besides canons and vicars there were appointed twenty-six 'alms-knights/ an institution out of which has grown the modern band of pensioners known as the Military and Naval Knights. The first ' Poor Knights ' were nominated by the first knights of the new Order of the Garter, each choosing one valiant soldier who in his old age had fallen on evil days, and was weak in body, indigent, and decayed. Before we come to the first chapter of the Order we must see what preparations Edward made for the reception of the knights companions. The Upper Ward was almost rebuilt, and under the State apart- ments built in the time of Charles II., and refaced by Wyatville, are still to be seen the vaulted cham- bers of Edward's basement. The great Bishop, William of Wykeham, was the architect, and from him the Winchester Tower obtained its name. It is said that the motto, ' Hoc Fecit Wykeham! was placed upon it, and that the wily prelate interpreted it to the King as meaning not ' Wykeham made this,' but ' This made Wykeham.' RENOVATION OF THE CASTLE. 55 This tradition is probably no more true than another one to the effect that the Kings of France and Scotland, while prisoners, when walking with King Edward in the Lower Ward, pointed out that INTERIOR OF THE GREAT HALL. the Upper Ward lay on higher ground, and com- manded a finer view, and that the King ' approved their sayings, adding pleasantly that it should so be, and that he would bring his castle thither, that 56 WINDSOR. is to say, enlarge it so far with two other wards, the charges whereof should be borne with their two ransoms.' Stow, who tells this story, adds, ' as after it came to pass ;' but though it is possible enough that the not very refined manners of the age per- mitted King Edward to talk and even to joke with his captives as to their ransoms, it is certain, as we have seen, that the Upper Ward was in existence long before, and that Edward's greatest works in that part of the Castle had been in progress for many years before either King John or King David came hither as prisoners. It is asserted on better grounds that some time in the beginning of his reign Edward with his Queen visited Glastonbury, where the Abbot showed them the tomb of King Arthur, and, opening it, dis- played the gigantic bones of the legendary king. Although Froissart may be in error in making 1344 the date of the institution of the Garter, it is cer- tain that the story of King Arthur and his Round Table had already obtained universal credence, and the addition to it which made his knights assemble at Windsor was willingly received. 'At this time Edward, king of England, resolved,' says Froissart, ' to rebuild the great castle of Windsor, formerly THE ROUND TABLE. 57 built and founded by King Arthur, and where was first set up and established the noble Round Table, from whence so many valiant men and knights have issued forth to perform feats of arms and A SKETCH IN THE STEWARD'S ROOM. prowess throughout the world.' We need not take up our space by recapitulating the arguments for and against Froissart's date, but it is more than probable that the idea of a brotherhood of this kind 58 WINDSOR. gradually grew up, and that by 1348 it had taken complete shape. Through all the country proclama- tions were made summoning builders, and carpenters, and other workmen, to complete the building. The old tower on the mound was removed, whatever it may have been, and the Round Tower was con- structed for the Round Table. It was built in haste, of chalk faced with better stone from Wheat- ley, 'which the Dean of St. Paul's had collected for his own building operations, but was per- suaded to give up to the King, and three ship- loads brought direct from Caen.' The table itself was set round the courtyard, and seems, from what can be made out, to have been in the shape rather of a horseshoe than of a full circle, so that the attendants could stand in the middle to serve the guests. Fifty-two oaks were brought from Reading to Westminster, where the King's workmen made the table, and forwarded it to the Castle. Here assembled the founders of this famous Order, and we can picture them as they filed in, each knight wearing over his armour the long sur- coat embroidered with his arms. His helmet has a visor, which, when seen in profile, looks like the beak of a bird, but it is probably carried by his Colonel Maude, V.C., Military Knight, of Windsor, died suddenly on Friday night at Windsor Castle, aged 72. He was the eldest son of the late Hon. Captain F. Maude, R.N. He joined the Royal Artillery in 1817, and commanded the guns of Havelock's column in his march to Cawnpore. Afterwards he took part in the repeated attempts to relieve the Lucknow garrison, which, it will be remembered, was partly effected on September 25th, 1857. Colonel Maude later assisted at the capture in the following year. Three times he was recommended for the Victoria Cr value, and iu which BURIAL OF CHARLES I. 95 examined the coffins of both the Kings. The body of Henry VIII. was a mere skeleton, a little of the beard only remaining on the chin. Sir Henry Halford's account of the head of Charles I. is well known. ' It was found to be loose, and without any difficulty was taken up and held to view. It was quite wet, and gave a greenish-red tinge to paper and to linen which touched it. ... The hair was thick at the back part of the head, and in appearance nearly black. A portion of it, which has since been cleaned and dried, is of a beautiful dark brown colour ; that of the beard was a redder brown. On the back part of the head it was no more than an inch in length, and had probably been cut so short for the convenience of the executioner, or per- haps by the piety of friends soon after death, in order to furnish memorials of the unhappy King. On holding up the head to examine the place of separation from the body, the muscles of the neck had evidently retracted themselves considerably, and the fourth cervical vertebra was found to be cut through its substance transversely, having the surfaces of the divided portions perfectly smooth and even, an appearance which could have been produced only by a heavy blow inflicted with a very sharp instru- ment.' The complexion was found to be dark and dis- coloured, the cartilage of the nose was gone, the 96 WINDSOR. left eye was seen only for a moment, yet the spec- tators recognised the strong resemblance to coins, busts, and especially the portraits by Vandyck. Oliver Cromwell seems to have liked Windsor, and in 1654 he caused the Little Park, which had been sold, to be bought back. The Castle was eventually settled by Parliament upon the Pro- tector, and the Poor Knights attended the funeral of Cromwell in the Chapel of Henry VII. During the interregnum before the return of Charles II. the Duke of Buckingham was for some time a prisoner at Windsor. Bulstrode Whitelock was Constable during the rule of the Commonwealth, and on the appointment of Lord Mordaunt, he gave him the particulars I have noticed already, in my first chapter, as to the duties and privileges of the office. Strange to say, Colonel Whitchcott appears to have remained at Windsor after the return of Charles, having probably taken a house in the town. The great event of the reign of Charles II., so far as Windsor is concerned, was the remodelling of the State apartments. This work was carried out by an architect named May, who does not seem to be otherwise known to fame, He only carried out the designs of Sir Christopher Wren, to whom the CHARLES II. 97 Star Building is always attributed. It was so called from a colossal star of the Order of the Garter, worked in gilding and colours, on the centre of the north front. The interior was entirely changed, and the present range of State apartments erected. Wyatville afterwards altered the exterior, and brought it into accordance with the Gothic character of the rest of the Castle. Verrio was employed to paint the walls and ceilings, and Gibbons to carve the fittings. The yo.ooo/. voted for a tomb to Charles I. was probably spent in these new buildings, and in the enlargement of the Terrace, which was con- tinued round the east and south sides. The Long Walk was planted, in part at least, at this time. Another alteration was that the prison tower, some- times called the Devil Tower, and previously the Rose Tower, at the south-west corner of the Upper Ward, was appropriated to the use of the maids of honour. In this reign, also, the lodge in the Great Park, now known as Cumberland Lodge, was built, and, to judge by an old view which is extant, was probably designed by Wren. It has undergone great alteration since, and shows little trace of his hand. Samuel Pepys visited Windsor in 1666, when he H 9 8 WINDSOR. was shown ' where the late king is buried, and King Henry VIII. and my Lady Seymour. This being done, to the King's house, and to observe the neat- ness and contrivance of the house and gates. It is the most romantique castle that is in the world. But Lord ! the prospect that is in the balcone that is in the Queen's lodgings, and the terrace and walk, are strange things to consider, being the best in the world, sure ; and so, giving a great deal of money to this and that man and woman, we to our tavern, and there dined.' We may pass over the remaining years of Charles II. at Windsor, merely pausing to note that one of his servants, Toby Rustat, erected in the centre of the Upper Ward a statue of the King in bronze, which is now placed close to the Mound, and which cost him 13007. James II., who was fond of hunt- ing, was very often at Windsor, and the Princess Anna gave birth here to a girl in 1686. The child was baptized by the names of Anne Sophia, but died soon afterwards, and is probably the same princess who was buried in the vault of Henry VIII. It was at Windsor, in July, 1687, that James took the fatal step of receiving the Pope's Nuncio ; and in 1688, on the I4th December, the Prince of WILLIAM IIL 99 Orange arrived at the Castle from the west, and here held the consultation which resulted in the flight of James. During the reign of William III. we hear more of the town of Windsor than of the Castle ; but it was here that the little Duke of Gloucester, the only child of the Princess Anne which lived even a few years, was taken ill shortly after his birthday, in July 1700. 'His distemper proved to be a violent Feaver with a Rash. All proper remedies were ap- plied, but without success ; ' and about one o'clock in the morning of the 3Oth of the same month he died, to the great grief of the whole kingdom. His death led to the famous Act of Settlement, by which the Hanoverian succession was established. The little Prince was never actually created Duke of Gloucester, though he was known by that title, and was only eleven years and five days old at the time of his death. His body was embalmed 'and remained in his Highness's Bed-Chamber in the South-East Corner of the Great Square Court of the Castle till Thursday at Nine a Clock in the Night, when 'twas brought down the Little Stairs and put into his own Body -Coach, the Earl of Marlborough with Mr. Sayres, the Deputy Cover- WINDSOR. nor, and Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber to His Royal Highness, Riding only in the coach there- with.' He was buried at Westminster, in the Chapel of Henry VII. William III. made some additions to the Little Park, which brought it to the river's edge, and built a brick wall round it. This wall has not long been removed, and the road to Old Windsor, which formerly went all round outside the wall, passes diagonally across what is now called the Home Park. The ground was laid out as an ornamental garden, and had a fountain in the centre, and in the reign of Queen Anne is said to have been planted with trees which represented from the win- dows above a plan of the battle of Blenheim. William III. completed the Long Walk, and in his last years employed Wren to make a great design for the south side of the Upper Ward in the ' Italian taste.' Queen Anne received the King of Spain, Charles III., at Windsor Castle in 1703, when ceremonies seem to have been observed very like those described in a former chapter, when the King of Castille visited Henry VII. The room is still pointed out in which the Queen was sitting with QUEEN ANNE. 103 the Duchess of Marlborough when the news came of the victory of Blenheim. It is a little closet, in the building of Queen Elizabeth, and forms now part of the Royal Library. Queen Anne, in fact, made Windsor her principal residence, but does not seem to have done very much in the way either of improvement or repair ; but she appears to have been the first sovereign who withdrew from the state and splendour of the Castle to the compara- tive retirement of a house in the neighbourhood. To this we owe the 'Queen's House' or 'Lodge,' so often mentioned by Miss Burney, which for a time became really the royal palace rather than the ancient Castle. It was situated on the south side of the ditch, very near the place now occupied by the Royal Stables, and had been Queen Anne's residence before she came to the throne. 104 V. George III. at Windsor Madame d'Arblay's 'Diary' Her Short Sight Topography of the Castle The State Apart- ments The Queen's Lodge Court Life Herschel Dis- comfort of the House The King's Illness Queen Charlotte at Frogmore James Wyatt Sir Jeffry Wyatville His Merits and Faults as an Architect The 'Restoration' of Windsor Castle Death of George IV. r I ""HE accession of the House of Hanover found J_ Windsor Castle in a fair state of repair ; but to the First and Second Georges Hampton Court was a far preferable summer residence. George III. never liked Hampton Court, it is said I know not with what truth because his irascible grandfather once struck him in that palace. It is said also that he disliked Kew, which is strange, as he made it so constantly a kind of half-way house on the road to London, and always spent a part of every week there when the Court was at Windsor. The ' Diary ' of Fanny Burney, better known to this generation by her later name of Madame d'Arblay, contains an interesting account of Court life at Windsor and Kew. She was in the service of Queen Charlotte, as joint Keeper of the Ward- pKS^^52S%^SS x" s^ 5 s p 'as&S f f'*5 * -*-'? f FEND ALL. On the 22nd inst., at Glenlyon House, Southampton, FRANCES ANNE KENDALL, daughter of the late John Feudal!. Member of tho Council of the Honourable East India Company, aged 90. FERRTE. On the 27th Dec., at The Limes, Upper Norwood, MARQARKT FRANCES FERRIE, widow of Alexander Dyce, of Aber- deen and Manila, by her first marriage, and of Peter Ferrie, of Blairtummock, Esquire, by her second marriage, aged 81. Funeral at Oufcwood. FIE^NES. On the 22nd Dec., at Malta, CECIL JOHN TWISLETON- WYKEHAK-FIENNIES, R.N., Lieut-Commander of H.M.S. Boxer, second son of the late Hoable. and Kevd. Cecil TnrUieton-Wykeham- Fiennes, aged 32. FOAKES. On Christmas Ere, at 76, Cadogan-pLice. S.W., JANE MARGARET FOAKES, after a very short illness. FORSYTE. On the 26th DPC., at 61. Rutland-gate, after 48 hours' illness, WILLIAM FORSYTE. Q.C., aged 87. Funeral Service at All BainU'.Ennismore-gardens, 10.30, Saturday, and afterwards at Brook- wood. Funeral train leaves Necropolis Station, Westminster-bridge- road, at 11.45 a.m. FRENCH. On Christmas Day, ELIZABETH, the dearly-beloved wife of EDWARD HENRY FRENCH, 27, Rockmount^road, Upper Nor- irood, aged 79. FROEHCH. On (he 27th inst., at Streathatn, WILLIAM PROHLICH, of 10, Sackvilie street, London, in his 85th year. GALBRAITH. On the 23rd De