Albert L
 
 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR
 
 THE STORY OF 
 ROYAL WINDSOR 
 
 BY 
 
 ALBERT (LEE 
 v ^_- 
 
 Author of "England's Sea Story," &c., -c 
 
 LONDON 
 JARROLD AND SONS, 10 & n, \VAR\\ICK LANE, EC
 
 All Rights Reserved.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THIS STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR would probably 
 never have been written had it not been for a public 
 utterance by the Vicar of Windsor the Rev. 
 J. H. J. Ellison. Preaching before the Mayor and 
 Corporation some months ago, he spoke of Windsor 
 Castle as "more widely known than any other 
 building in the world. Men living far away have 
 been familiar with its outline from their earliest 
 years. The picture of Windsor Castle hangs on the 
 walls of their farms and ranches out on the South 
 African veldt, or the back blocks of Australia, and 
 when they come home to England, Windsor Castle 
 is one of the places they must see." 
 
 The Vicar endeavoured to convince those who 
 belong to the Royal Borough of the necessity of 
 promoting a sense of patriotism, and in the minds 
 of the youth of the town and county particularly. 
 Thousands visit the place, coming from every 
 quarter of the world, and these should be shown "a 
 population proud of the history of the town, and 
 looking upon itself as the custodian of one of the 
 central shrines of the British Empire." 
 
 Then came the suggestion that " a place is 
 waiting .... for the man who shall write a 
 simple history of the town suitable for use as a 
 reading book in our Elementary Schools." 
 
 As the outcome of the Vicar's sermon, I was
 
 viii. PREFACE. 
 
 approached, and it was my sincere pleasure to write 
 the book. Now I send it forth a contribution 
 which serves to display a story not to be paralleled, 
 perhaps, in connection with any other place the 
 wide world over. 
 
 I have endeavoured to write a book for " all sorts 
 and conditions of men " ; for the youth of Windsor 
 and the surrounding counties, as the Vicar sug- 
 gested ; for the citizens of the town ; and for those 
 thousands who visit a place which has so unique 
 a history. 
 
 I owe my sincerest thanks to the Hon. John W. 
 Fortescue, the King's Librarian at Windsor Castle, 
 for making it possible for me to consult books, 
 without which I could never have produced this 
 story. 
 
 I am also indebted to the kindness of the Rev. 
 Canon Dalton, of St. George's Chapel, in giving me 
 information which seemed to be peculiarly his own. 
 
 As for the many and valuable illustrations which 
 embellish the book, I am under great obligation to 
 Mr. Arthur E. Goddard, the Editor of the Lady's 
 Pictorial, and to Alderman A. T. Barber. Mr. 
 Barber was singularly kind, for he gave me per- 
 mission to use for my purpose any of the pictures 
 which are in his valuable and unique collection at 
 "The King's Head Museum," in Church Street. 
 
 The photographs from which the blocks were 
 prepared were taken by Messrs. Russell, of Windsor. 
 
 ALBERT LEE. 
 Windsor.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 1>AGF. 
 
 PREFACE - vii. 
 
 I. THE GREAT MOUND I 
 
 ii. WINDSOR'S ROMAN MASTERS 12 
 
 III. THE ROUND TABLE - 1 8 
 
 IV. "THE SPOTLESS KING" 28 
 
 v. WINDSOR'S EARLY DAYS - 36 
 
 V[. WINDSOR AFTER THE CONQUEST 45 
 
 VII. A TURBULENT REIGN - 58 
 
 VIII A TREACHEROUS PRINCE 62 
 
 IX. THE GREAT DAY AT RUNNYMEAD 72 
 
 x. THE BARONS' WAR - 78 
 
 XI. WHEN HENRY III. WAS KING 82 
 
 XII. BAD DAYS FOR WINDSOR 9 2 
 
 XIII. HOW WINDSOR GAINED HER CHARTER 98 
 
 XIV. THE DAYS OF THE EARLY EDWARDS 105 
 XV. WINDSOR GREAT FOREST - - IIO
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I>A<;E 
 
 XVI. WHEN EDWARD III. WAS KING- 1 2O 
 
 xvit. WINDSOR'S PATRON SAINT - 127 
 
 XVIII. THE NO3LE ORDER OF THE GARTER 134 
 
 xix. WINDSOR'S FAMOUS PRISONERS 145 
 
 XX. DARK DAYS - 159 
 
 XXI. THE FOUNDATION OF ETON COLLEGE 1 68 
 
 xxii. ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL - 184 
 
 XXIII. THE TUDOR KINGS IN WINDSOR 193 
 
 XXIV. WHEN ELIZABETH WAS QUEEN 204 
 XXV. "THE MELANCHOLY REIGN OF 
 
 CHARLES I." 2l8 
 
 XXVI. RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION 22J 
 
 XXVII. WHEN ANNE WAS QUEEN 240 
 XXVIII. WINDSOR UNDER THE EARLY 
 
 HANOVERIANS 244 
 XXIX. WHEN "FARMER GEORGE" WAS 
 
 KING - 249 
 
 xxx. WINDSOR'S LATER GLORIES - 260
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 TAGE 
 
 WINDSOR CASTLE FROM THE BROCAS, ETON Frontispiece 
 
 SHOWING HOW WINDSOR CASTLE STANDS ON THE GREAT 
 
 MOUND - 3 
 
 THE VIEW FROM THE GREAT MOUND 5 
 
 THE EAST TERRACE AND GARDENS, WINDSOR CASTLE 7 
 
 SHOWING HOW WINDSOR CASTLE STAND ON THE GREAT 
 
 MOUND 9 
 
 WINDSOR CASTLE : THE RIVER SWEEPING ROUND THE 
 
 GREAT MOUND - 15 
 
 WINDSOR CASTl.E : BIRD'S-EYE VIEW ; THE MOUND IN THE 
 PICTURE SHOWS THE PROBABLE SITE OF KING ARTHUR'S 
 STRONGHOLD WHICH CONTAINED THE ROUND TABLE 21 
 ROUND TOWER : SUPPOSED SITE OF THE ROUND TABLE. 
 
 ORIGINAL TOWER PROBABLY BUILT OF TIMBER 23 
 
 THE ROUND TOWER AS IT STANDS TO-DAY - 25 
 
 BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF WINDSOR CASTLE IN THE OLDEN TIME 33 
 THE CASTLE FROM THE RIVER 4! 
 
 THE CASTLE FROM THE RIVER IN 1826 - 43 
 
 OLD WINDSOR BRIDGE - 47 
 
 THE SOUTH ELEVATION OF WINDSOR CASTLE, BUILT BY 
 
 HENRY I., EDWARD III., AND HENRY VII. AND VIII. 49 
 
 THE NORTH ELF.VATION OF WINDSOR CASTLE AS REBUILT 
 BY EDWARD III., HENRY VII., QUEEN ELIZABETH, AND 
 CHARLES II. - 51
 
 xii. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 NORTH-WEST VIEW OF THE ROUND TOWER OF WINDSOR 
 
 CASTLE, WITH PART OF THE QUEEN'S LODGE - 55 
 
 THE CASTLE IN 1793 65 
 MAGNA CHARTA ISLAND : WHERE THE GREAT CHARTER WAS 
 
 SIGNED - - 73 
 
 CASTLE HILL - 83 
 
 AN EXTRACT FROM WINDSOR'S CHARTER IOI 
 
 WINDSOR GREAT FOREST - III 
 
 EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF GEORGE III. IN THE GREAT FOREST, 
 
 COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE "COPPER HORSE" - 113 
 
 HERNE'S OAK, IN THE GREAT FOREST 117 
 
 THE EAST ELEVATION OF WINDSOR CASTLE, AS BUILT BY 
 
 EDWARD III. - - 123 
 
 ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL, SHOWING PART OF THE CEREMONY 
 
 OF AN INSTALLATION OF THE KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER 135 
 ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL : ON THE RIGHT ARE THE MILITARY 
 
 KNIGHTS' QUARTERS - 143 
 
 THE PRISON IN THE CURFEW TOWER 147 
 
 THE NORMAN GATEWAY THE PRISON OF JAMES I. OF 
 
 SCOTLAND AND MANY OTHER FAMOUS PRISONERS IN 
 
 THE FOREGROUND IS THE MOAT GARDEN - 155 
 
 ETON COLLEGE : QUADRANGLE AND STATUE OF THE 
 
 FOUNDER, HENRY VI. - 171 
 
 ETON COLLEGE, FROM THE SLOUGH ROAD - 175 
 
 ETON, FROM THE PLAYING FIELDS. TIME, 1840 177 
 
 ETON COLLEGE, FROM THE RIVER l8l 
 
 ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL : WEST FRONT 187 
 
 THE ALBERT MEMORIAL CHAPKL. ORIGINALLY HENRY VII. 's 
 
 TOMB-HOUSE - 189 
 
 CHOIR AND ORGAN OF ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL, WITH THE 
 
 BANNERS OF THE KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER 19!
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xiii 
 
 I'AGE 
 HENRY VIII. 'S GATEWAY ON THE LEFT. TIMK, EARLY 
 
 VICTORIAN . 197 
 
 OI D HOUSE < IN CHURCH S I'RERT, HENRY VIII. 's GATEWAY 
 IN THE DISTANCE. NELL GWYNNK's HOUSE ON THE 
 RIGHT, AND THE KING'S HEAD MUSEUM 199 
 
 THE GREAT TERRACE : IN ITS PRESENT FORM IT IS KNOWN 
 AS THE NORTH TERRACE. THE TWO TOWERS FORM 
 PART OF THE NORMAN GATEWAY 207 
 
 THAMES STREET IN THE Ol.DEN TIME 211 
 
 TOWN HALL 213 
 
 WINDSOR PARISH CHURCH 215 
 
 'JHE GRAND QUADRANGLE, WITH EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF 
 
 CHARLES II. - 229 
 
 THE LONG WALK - 2J3 
 
 THE TOWN H\LL, PRESENT DAY, SHOWING T.M. KING 
 EDWARD VII. AND QUEEN ALEXANDRA RIDING THROUGH 
 THE TOWN 235 
 
 WINDSOR CASTLE AND TOWN. SOUTH-WEST VIEW. TIME, 
 
 1785 245 
 
 THE MASONIC HALL, USED BY THE BRETHREN OF THE 
 
 "WINDSOR CASTLE" LODGE - 247 
 
 EAST FRONT, TIME, ABOUT l82O. HIS MAJESTY'S APART- 
 MENTS - - 251 
 
 THE GRAND STAIRCASE : ABOUT 1839 253 
 STATE ENTRANCE, IN GRAND QUADRANGLE, AT THE TIME 
 
 OF QUEEN VICTORIA'S ACCESSION - 2 55 
 
 THE QUEEN'S HOUSE, 1781. NOW DEMOLISHED 257 
 
 WINDSOR CASTLE : Vlh-W FROM LIBRARY WINDOW 261 
 
 WINDSOR CASTLE : NORTH FRONT 263 
 
 QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE ROYAL FAMILY 265
 
 THE STORY OF 
 ROYAL WINDSOR 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE GREAT MOUND. 
 
 IN the days gone by, long before men wrote the 
 world's story, and when indeed the art of writing 
 had not been dreamed of, a huge chalk mound stood 
 on the edge of a mighty forest. Round the great 
 base a broad stream rolled, going slowly in the days 
 of summer, but moving furiously when the winter 
 snows were melting, and the land was soddened with 
 incessant rain. It was a mound without a name, a 
 place without a story, a desolate spot visited by 
 savage beasts, or made the eyrie of the still more 
 savage men who hunted them. 
 
 The great chalk cliff stands there to-day, no 
 longer desolate and deserted, and skirted at its base 
 by a sullen stream, but made glorious by the story 
 that has gathered concerning it in the course of 
 many centuries a story of heroic deeds and 
 tragedies, alternating with scenes of pomp and 
 chivalry, of feasts and tournaments, centered as it 
 were on this now historic mound, oi> which,
 
 2 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR, 
 
 " the grey old fortress and its towers and crenellated 
 walls," where kings were born, held courts and 
 councils the stately home of a sovereign of the 
 greatest empire the world has ever known. 
 
 The grey-walled palace, from whose Round Tower 
 floats the Royal Standard of England, is Windsor 
 Castle. The town which gathers about its walls is 
 known of men the whole world over. The county 
 on the borders of whose rich foliaged landscape the 
 stately pile stands, is Royal Berkshire. One gazes 
 at the chalk cliff to-day, and the palace is so great 
 and beautiful that the hope of Shakespeare comes : 
 
 " That it may stand till the perpetual doom." 
 
 When men now mount on the castle tower and 
 look abroad, they gaze upon a scene of perfect 
 beauty. The winding Thames glides tranquilly 
 between its green and shadowy banks, shining like a 
 ribbon of burnished silver. Across the valley one 
 sees the distant hills covered with forest trees. 
 Nearer yet in the midst of the great sweep of 
 meadow-land, the old red and grey building of Eton 
 displays itself, peeping out from among the elms, 
 and willows, and chestnuts. One recalls the words 
 of the poet Gray, when he pictures the magnificent 
 prospect : 
 
 " From the stately brow 
 Of Windsor's heights the expanse below 
 
 Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey, 
 Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among 
 Wanders the hoary Thames along 
 His silver winding way."
 
 4 THE STOR Y OF RO YAL WINDSOR. 
 
 The man who hunted in the country round about 
 in the prehistoric days, and sometimes climbed the 
 great hill where few trees grew, saw no such scene as 
 this. The romantic river as we know it now does not 
 resemble that mighty stream which then swept on 
 and on towards the sea. In winter, when the snows 
 were melting, and great slabs of ice like floating 
 islands moved on the waters, and the heavy rains 
 were deluging the land, filling the air with the 
 monotonous swishing sound of the continuous down- 
 pour on the foliage, the river was so wide and 
 turbulent that the most reckless swimmer feared to 
 breast the stream to swim from bank to bank. 
 
 Yet when summer came, while the waters had lost 
 their sweeping force, and moved but slowly onwards, 
 there were vast marshes where the ground lay flat 
 and low, where the rhinoceros wallowed in muddy 
 pools, and dense rushes and reeds became the home 
 of flocks of water-fowl. 
 
 The savage saw other things than can be seen 
 to-day, when he gazed from the summit of the 
 mound, here into Surrey, there into Buckinghamshire, 
 and into Berkshire. The broad meadows, starred 
 with summer flowers, the winding silver stream, and 
 the clump of elms in the Brocas weie not there. 
 He saw instead an immense forest, so dense as to 
 be impassable in many parts, with open spaces here 
 and there, and glades which broke the mass of 
 foliage. It was a country full of tangled jungle and 
 trees, but quite as full of wild beauty. 
 
 The man himself who gazed in all directions, was 
 strange to look upon, hairy, and without clothes,
 
 6 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 who did not build a home for himself since, with his 
 wife and children, he was for ever on the move, 
 chasing the great creatures that roamed the forest, 
 and were no more savage than himself. To-day this 
 hunter is called a Paleolithic man, or the man of 
 stone, since every weapon he used was made of the 
 stones and flints he found about him, roughly chipped 
 into shape, and fastened to cleft sticks which served 
 for handles. 
 
 When the man walked down the slopes, to look 
 for his wife and little ones, perhaps to tell them that 
 in the far distance he had seen a mammoth, or an 
 elk, or a herd of wild oxen, he turned his way 
 towards a tree in the branches of which the family 
 had slept in the night, out of the reach of the wild 
 beasts. It was all the home he had, save when in 
 \\inter-time he found a cave or some deep hollow, 
 scooped out to shelter him and his from the blinding 
 wind and snow, or pelting rain. The life he led was 
 that of a savage of the lowest order. The food was 
 eaten raw, since he knew nothing about the kindling 
 of a fire. 
 
 But in time this man, and all the others of his 
 kind died out, and in Royal Berkshire and elsewhere, 
 new men came. It may be that they were 
 descendants of the others who had become some- 
 what civilised, changing their habits, and in every 
 way advancing. They are called Neolithic men, or 
 new stone men, from the Greek word Neos, which 
 means new. Their tools and weapons were made of 
 stone, but they were better shaped. They took the 
 trouble to make them ornamental, and polished them.
 
 8 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 There was a change, moreover, in the habits of 
 these later men who came at times to gaze across 
 the land from the height of that great mound where 
 Windsor was some day to be built. The early stone 
 man was an unsociable creature, who never troubled 
 himself about his neighbours, who was bent on 
 getting food, and had no care for other things. The 
 new stone man began to have dealings with others. 
 He did not like the lonely life, and consequently 
 went to live with the others, who, when they found a 
 place to their liking, began to build huts, and formed - 
 a village. Then they chose one of their number to 
 be their chieftain. One can imagine such a village 
 being built on the Windsor mound, from whence the 
 people could go to the river to fish for a change of 
 food. 
 
 In some way never yet explained, the Neolithic 
 men discovered how to make tools of bronze instead 
 of stone, and later still of iron. 
 
 It was a discovery which served them well in 
 dangerous days. War was their chief occupation, 
 for circumstances left them no choice. Men from 
 a distant land were looking for another home. 
 Crossing the sea from Europe came warriors by 
 thousands, a strong race whose trade was war, and 
 having gone through Kent and other districts in the 
 south with sword and fire, and sweeping up the 
 Thames, travelling on either side of the broad 
 stream, they reached Windsor's mighty mound, and 
 took possession of it for themselves. From its 
 summit they saw the land they had come to conquer, 
 the forests of Berkshire, the lowlands and open
 
 I
 
 io THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 spaces of Buckinghamshire, the river-swept districts 
 of Surrey, and went away to master the people 
 there. 
 
 These invaders were the Celts, some of whom 
 would go no farther, since they saw that Windsor 
 was a pleasant place to d well in. 
 
 They were a finer race in every way than those 
 whom they had conquered ; tall and large-limbed, 
 blue-eyed, and fair-haired. They were known as 
 Goidels ; but in time the BrytJions followed, and 
 being more capable men, better armed, and better 
 fighters, they drove out the Goidels, and settled 
 down in the territory they had won. Gradually we 
 find the name of Briton used instead of Brython, 
 and we can well suppose that the land they 
 conquered was in time called Britain. 
 
 We now come to a time when dates begin to tell ; 
 to a time fixed as being some five hundred years 
 before the Romans came with Julius Caesar. These 
 tribes settled around the great Windsor cliff, some of 
 their number spreading away into Buckinghamshire 
 and elsewhere. Gradually they gathered flocks and 
 became herdsmen. Desiring to have dealings with 
 those who dwelt in other districts, they passed and 
 re-passed, between the various places, until they beat 
 down a sheepwalk through the forest and open 
 country, but in time these narrow winding paths 
 broadened into roads with the constant traffic. 
 Such a change was going on, not in Berkshire only, 
 but in every part of Britain. 
 
 The Britons of Berkshire were not the savages we 
 are led to suppose by the old Roman writers. They
 
 THE GREAT MOUND. n 
 
 were the Atrabates, and the Thames served to 
 separate them from their fiercer neighbours, the 
 Duboni, who were on the other side of the Thames, 
 in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. Caesar called 
 them painted savages, but in reality they were so 
 advanced in civilisation four hundred years before 
 that one traveller says he saw them growing corn, 
 and doing many things which savages would not do. 
 They had a coinage, and were skilful in many trades, 
 as well as dwellers in houses built of timber and 
 reeds. It is true that they tattooed, but English 
 sailors also do such a thing to-day, and are not 
 counted as savages. 
 
 Such were the men of Windsor ; the men who 
 dwelt on and around the mound which was to 
 become famous as Royal Windsor.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 WINDSOR'S ROMAN MASTERS. 
 
 WHY Julius Caesar came to Britain it is not easy to 
 say. Doubtless he desired to add to his glory as a 
 Roman " the romance of a brilliant adventure," while 
 for his excuse to the Senate at Rome, he wrote to 
 say that the people of the island were giving him 
 trouble by helping the Gauls whom he was conquering. 
 
 The day came when he was free to punish the 
 Britons for assisting his enemies, and in B.C. 55 he 
 carried an army across the Channel, and landing in 
 Britain, found what he did not expect, some 
 desperately hard fighting. The invasion was not a 
 success, and when the Britons sued for peace, Caesar, 
 not finding himself strong enough in numbers to 
 conquer the land, agreed to terms, and returned to 
 Gaul, as France was then called. The next year he 
 brought over a very great army, and after some of 
 the fiercest fighting he had ever known, he succeeded 
 in driving back the Britons into the forests. 
 
 After resting awhile, to give his soldiers time to 
 regain their strength, Caesar marched northwards 
 across the Surrey downs, forcing the enemy back 
 continually, until he came to the Thames and found
 
 WINDSOR'S ROMAN MASTERS. 13 
 
 himself in Berkshire. There is a tradition that just 
 outside of Windsor, on the road which lies between 
 Forest Gate and Ascot, at a point where three trees 
 now stand close by the ditch, the valiant British 
 chieftain, Caswallon, or Cassivelaunus, stood and 
 spoke to his warriors before he led them against the 
 Romans who were marching into Berkshire. 
 
 At that time it was all forest and marsh, where 
 Cassivelaunus had driven his herds of cattle, and 
 brought his women and children. The fight which 
 followed was heroic. The Britons fought against an 
 overwhelming army, until they fell back on the great 
 heaps of slain ; until they could fight no more and had 
 to sue for peace. Great general that Caesar was, he 
 did not feel equal to the task of conquering the 
 Britons without a greater army than he had. Vet he 
 wrote a letter to the Senate of Rome, in which he 
 said : " I came. I saw. I conquered." That last 
 assertion was not true, for the Britons were not a 
 conquered people. They were beaten in so many 
 fights that they asked for peace, but they were not 
 subdued. Nearly a hundred years went by before 
 the Romans were ready to face the Britons again. 
 
 The second attempt was made in A.D. 43. The 
 work of conquest was a prolonged one, but once 
 achieved, the Romans held the land for nearly four 
 hundred years. To overawe the Atrabates the 
 Britons of Berkshire who did not seem to know 
 when they were beaten, the conquerors built a strong 
 walled city, known to us as Silchester, but called by 
 them Calleva Atrebatum. The walls were three 
 miles round, and were strongly fortified, while the city
 
 i 4 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 itself, which contained many fine buildings, an amphi- 
 theatre for gladiatorial sports, and splendid baths, 
 was full of narrow streets. 
 
 There is little to tell of the story round about 
 Windsor, or of any of the doings in Berkshire. One 
 can imagine the marching of the legions, or Roman 
 regiments of soldiers, along the splendid roads which 
 ran through the country, straight as an arrow, never 
 turning aside, either for valleys, or hills, or marshes. 
 There were also the old British roads, not worthy to 
 be compared with those laid down by the conquerors, 
 but interesting, and running through some beautiful 
 bits of country. There was, for instance, a Celtic 
 path running from Marlow through Cookham, 
 straight through Maidenhead Thicket, Bray, and 
 St. Leonard's Hill, and then through Old 
 Windsor to Staines, across Runnymead. The 
 Romans used it, but did not spend much labour on 
 it, being only careful to keep the great roads in 
 repair. 
 
 When the conquest was complete, rich Romans in 
 the cities began to build country villas, to which they 
 went when they wanted a holiday, and throughout 
 Berkshire there are many remains of the homes of 
 these conquerors. Spots so beautiful as these near 
 the banks of the Silver Thames would naturally have 
 a charm for the wealthy Romans who, as time went 
 on, had nothing to fear from the Atrabates. The 
 conquered people were not eager to go into the 
 cities. They knew that if they did they would be 
 little better than slaves, scarcely better than cattle, 
 since the Romans always so treated those who were
 
 16 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 their servants. But in the country they had a certain 
 liberty, and could move about with a certain 
 amount of freedom, just as they pleased. Now and 
 again they went into one of the cities to see the 
 games in the amphitheatre, to watch the fights there 
 in the arena between wild beasts, or between the 
 gladiators, whose trade it was to fight. On the whole 
 thty liked most to live in their own country villages, 
 and be busy in the fields among the flocks, or in 
 looking after the crops, as they did before they 
 dreamt of the coming of the Romans. Some of the 
 Britons of Berkshire, like those who dwelt elsewhere, 
 bec.ime Romanised ; that is to say, they copied the 
 Romans in their ways, lived like them, and being 
 rich, became masters of beautiful villas. They had 
 their slaves, and bought the luxuries that came from 
 Rome and the far-off East. 
 
 Many remains of the Romans are found from time 
 to time in the Thames Valley, especially on the 
 Windsor side of the river. Round about Windsor 
 are hidden burial grounds which the Romans used, 
 and remains of Roman houses, all covered with earth. 
 In the course of the four hundred years in which the 
 Romans were in Britain, the Britons imitated their 
 conquerors in so many things that nearly all that 
 they had done before was forgotten. The owners of the 
 great dye works in Calleva or Silchester, bought the 
 wool from the shepherds whose flocks fed on the Berk- 
 shire Downs, but the numbers of the shepherds grew 
 less and less. 
 
 Trouble came to Rome in the fourth century. The 
 men of Northern Europe poured into the sunny
 
 WINDSOR'S ROMAN MASTERS. 17 
 
 lands of Italy, burning the towns and villages, 
 destroying the crops, and killing men, women, and 
 children without pity. So terrible were these men, 
 and so great were their armies, that the Romans 
 seemed helpless. Anxious to save Rome from being 
 ruined, the Emperor called his legions, or armies, 
 from the most distant parts of the Empire to guard 
 the capital. 
 
 Among the soldiers thus called back to Rome 
 were those who were in Britain.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ROUND TABLE. 
 
 WHEN the last Roman soldier left Britain the people 
 found themselves face to face with a task before 
 which the stoutest-hearted might well quail, yet not 
 deserve the name of coward. The Picts and Scots, 
 warlike tribes on the other side of the northern 
 border, swarmed into the country as soon as they 
 heard that the Romans had gone. They were 
 tremendous fighters ; indeed, war was the one trade 
 they followed, and their greatest delight was to meet 
 their enemies and slaughter them. Their chief 
 boast was as to how many men and women they 
 had slain. 
 
 Armed with light javelins or spears, or tremendous 
 swords, and carrying shields made of wicker-work or 
 skins of cattle, they came pouring into Britain by 
 thousands, going everywhere, and even getting as far 
 south as Berkshire. One may well imagine that 
 some of them stood on the mound where Windsor 
 Castle stands to-day, and looked round to see 
 whether there were any villages they could burn, 
 and any cattle they could drive away. When they 
 had become so burdened with plunder that they
 
 THE ROUND TABLE. 19 
 
 could carry no more, they hurried back with their 
 booty before the Britons could gather an army to 
 pursue them. 
 
 At last one of the British chieftains named Vorti- 
 gern, ruler of that part of Britain which is now occu- 
 pied by London, and Essex, and Kent, called some 
 of the other princes together, and after a long and 
 anxious conference, it was decided to invite the aid 
 of some Saxon pirates, or freebooters, to come and 
 drive back the men who were ruining the country. 
 
 The Saxons were men who made war their trade, 
 on land or ocean. Camden, the old chronicler, has 
 this couplet in his book as to how the Saxons 
 got their name : 
 
 " The Saxon people did, as most believe, 
 Their name from SAXA, a short sword, receive." 
 
 These Saxons consented at once, and began with- 
 out delay to call in their fellow-countrymen from 
 every quarter where they were to be found. 
 Messengers went in all directions to tell of the wish 
 of the Britons, and soon there was an army of 
 Saxons in the land. In a short time the Picts and 
 Scots were driven back into Scotland with terrible 
 slaughter. When the work was done the payment 
 was honourably made. 
 
 It was then that the Britons discovered what a 
 mistake they had made in asking others to fight 
 their battles for them. The Saxons saw as they 
 marched through the land, while driving the enemy 
 through Berkshire into the Midlands, and then 
 
 C
 
 20 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 farther and farther north, what beauty and riches 
 there were in the land. They then determined that 
 they would win the land for themselves, and 
 thought it would be an easy conquest. Some 
 of their number had taken their pay and had gone, 
 but those who remained sent to them to return and 
 help in the conquest. The others came in their 
 thousands to play their part. Before long the name 
 of Saxon became one of terror to the startled 
 Britons. The sea-pirates were men of great stature, 
 cruel, and dangerous enemies who laughed at the 
 perils of the ocean, and delighted in storms, and in 
 battles. They were the sort of men who seemed to 
 be made for conquering other lands. 
 
 They found at first that the Britons were easy to 
 beat, but in time the people of the land not only 
 plucked up courage, but learnt the way to fight. 
 They became such fine soldiers at last, that in spite 
 of the overwhelming numbers of the Saxons, who 
 kept pouring into the country, it took no less than 
 two hundred years for the whole land to be won. 
 
 In connection with this great struggle, the story of 
 King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table 
 has been told. Of course nearly all that is said 
 about this king is legend ; a marvellous story of 
 which much is untrue. One writer says that this 
 famous British King not only beat back the Saxons, 
 but began to build the noble tower at Windsor, and 
 there instituted the so-called Round Table. At the 
 best he could have been nothing more than a petty 
 King of the Silures, one of the British tribes ; but 
 some declare that he not only became King of all
 
 , -Si *,< j, /:#'$ 
 
 /, : -w>S
 
 22 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 Britain because of his prowess and knightly deeds, 
 but swept back the would-be conquerors, and thus 
 enabled the Britons to maintain their independence 
 for many years. Writers tell us more than this. 
 They say that he took his soldiers across the sea, 
 and conquered France, Norway, and Denmark, 
 which no one believes, and that at his coronation 
 feast at Caerleon, the Kings of Scotland were 
 present, which is probable. They go on to say that 
 there was no prince of any price on this side of 
 Spain who was not there. 
 
 This much may be certain, that when Arthur 
 came to the throne, the country bore the appearance 
 of ruin. Tennyson, in his poem called "The Idylls 
 of the King," says : 
 
 " And thus the land of Cameliard was waste, 
 Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein, 
 And none or few to scare or chase the beast : 
 So that wild dog, and wolf, and boar, and bear 
 Came night and day, and rooted in the fields, 
 And wallowed in the gardens of the King. 
 And ever and anon the wolf would steal 
 The children, and devour." 
 
 This shows how the Saxons destroyed the land 
 while making war against the Britons, and what a 
 need there was for some great chief to rise and call 
 upon the people to drive out the enemy that was 
 spoiling the land. 
 
 One takes full notice of this famous British King 
 because of the suggestion that it was he who first 
 made warlike use of the mound on which Windsor
 
 " 
 
 
 
 g o
 
 2 1 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 stands to-day. Men seemed to have loved him for 
 his noble character as much as for his greatness, and 
 when he died there was great mourning in the land. 
 One old "writer says of him that he was " the greatest, 
 richest, most powerful, glorious, and successful 
 monarch that ever reigned in the world." If all 
 were true that is said about him, there never was 
 such a warrior ; for the story runs that against the 
 Saxons he fought as many as twelve fiercely 
 contested battles, and was victorious in them all. 
 The twelfth, which was on Mount Badon in A.D. 
 520, was the most terrible of them all, for Arthur, 
 with his magic sword called Excalibur, was every- 
 where on the field, and slew that day no less than 
 960 men ! 
 
 The old historians tell us that after Arthur's 
 victories the Saxons feared to face him, so that for 
 the rest of his days the land had peace. Then his 
 renown was so spoken of throughout the other lands 
 that many famous knights came to Britain that they 
 might learn from him the true art of war. He was 
 esteemed the world's 
 
 "ideal knight, 
 
 Who reverenced his conscience as his King ; 
 Whose glory was, redressing human wrong; 
 Who spake no slander, no, nor listened to it. 
 Wearing the white flower of a blameless life." 
 
 It is said that he held his Court in Windsor, and 
 that out of those who came to him, the king selected 
 a certain number some say four and twenty of the 
 most valiant, and formed them into an Order of
 
 26 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 Knighthood. " To prevent jealousy as to priority of 
 place when they met together at meat, Arthur 
 caused a round table to be made, whereat none 
 could be thought to sit higher or lower than another ; 
 and thus they were called ths Knights of the Round 
 Table." 
 
 Edward III., like many others, believed that 
 this table was placed in a building on the mound 
 where the Round Tower now stands. Being, like 
 most British buildings, of wood, the place decayed 
 in the course of hundreds of years, and left no trace 
 behind it. 
 
 Putting aside legend such as this, then of actual 
 history there is much which shows how valiantly the 
 men of Berkshire withstood their Saxon enemies. 
 For a long time the invaders fought hard to subdue 
 the tribes who lived in the country between Berkshire 
 and the sea, but one tribe went down after another, 
 and the Saxons came nearer and nearer to Windsor. 
 They seem to have come into Berkshire from every 
 quarter. The Thames, broad as it was, did not 
 hinder them, and on the land side they poured 
 down the hills and into the plains. 
 
 The splendid defence broke down at last. The 
 fighting men among the Britons were either killed, 
 or, finding resistance useless, they fled, first burying 
 their money and whatever things of value they 
 possessed and could not carry away. Then they 
 escaped into the forests and marshes to hide their 
 valuables, while they thought of a place where they 
 might find a new home. Many crossed the river 
 into Oxfordshire, where the Saxons had not yet
 
 THE ROUND TABLE. 27 
 
 gone, but few had courage to return for their hidden 
 money, lest the Saxons should slay them or make 
 them slaves. 
 
 The conquerors swept through Berkshire, burning 
 and pillaging as they went. When they passed 
 through a village where the people dared to fight, 
 they put it to the flames, and slew the inhabitants 
 without mercy, or flung them into the flames of the 
 burning houses. 
 
 There was no fiercer fighting anywhere than in 
 this Thames-bordered district. The struggle here 
 went on for more than forty years, and not until 
 A.D. 519 were the conquerors able to establish the 
 kingdom of the West Saxons, which was made up 
 of the present counties of Berkshire, Wiltshire, 
 Hampshire, Dorsetshire, and the Isle of Wight. 
 
 Even then the dauntless Britons would not accept 
 defeat. More than one place was recaptured, like 
 Wallingford, and held for a long time. But the 
 Saxons brought great armies, and drove out or slew 
 the brave defenders.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "THE SPOTLESS KING." 
 
 CERDIC, a chieftain from whom Edward VII. is 
 descended, made the Saxon conquest of Berkshire 
 complete, and became the first King of the West 
 Saxons. This kingdom was better known as Wessex. 
 Windsor, belonging to Berkshire, has the glory of 
 having formed a part of a kingdom which grew in 
 the course of centuries, as Freeman, the historian, tells 
 us, into England, England into the United Kingdom, 
 and the United Kingdom into the British Empire. 
 " Before the prowess of the men of Wessex all 
 other kingdoms went down, and that kingdom 
 became the chief among them all." 
 
 Throughout the centuries in which this struggle 
 lasted, Berkshire and Oxfordshire became the great 
 battle-ground. The armies of the contending Saxons 
 crossed and re-crossed the Thames. Sometimes the 
 men of Mercia came over the river to fight the men 
 of Wessex, and battles waged which ended in 
 thousands lying dead on the field. How many times 
 the great mound on which Windsor Castle stands 
 became the place for such a struggle, will never be
 
 " THE SPOTLESS KING." 29 
 
 known, but we may be sure that many a time the 
 country round Windsor had its full share of blood- 
 shed. It could not fail to do so, since it was divided 
 from the territory of another ambitious king only by 
 the broad and winding river. 
 
 Penda, the greatest of the Kings of Mercia, seems 
 to have marched his army along the river banks, and 
 dashing across at some of the fords, marched through 
 Wessex, killing and burning as he went. Then came 
 retaliation. The men of Wessex swept out the 
 Mercians, and crossing the Thames after the flying 
 army, they held the land for many years, until, 
 indeed, Offa became King of Mercia. He was a 
 great righting monarch, and coming on the Wessex 
 men unawares, drove them across the river with 
 dreadful slaughter. The Thames had scores upon 
 scores of dead bodies floating down its stream. 
 
 But the glory of Berkshire centres in King Alfred, 
 who has been called '' The Spotless King." By birth 
 he was a Berkshire man, having been born at 
 Wantage in the year 849. He won his fame, not 
 like Cedric, by fighting against Saxons, but against a 
 common foe. Seventeen years before the young 
 prince was born, the Danes, rinding that no fleet 
 guarded the shores of England against sea pirates, 
 landed for the sake of pillaging the villages near the 
 coast 
 
 They were the dreaded Vikings, a race of 
 adventurers as lawless and terrible as any that ever 
 sailed on the tossing ocean. They came from the 
 pine forests, the blue fiords or inlets of the sea, and 
 from the lowlands of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark,
 
 30 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 and harried every country whose shores were laved 
 by the waters of the great Atlantic. They have 
 been called Rovers of the Sea. They were pirates 
 who wore hoods on which were eagles' wings, and the 
 tusks of walruses. Wherever they landed they 
 destroyed the villages, murdered those who did not 
 know of their coming, and therefore had not fled, 
 robbed and burned the monasteries, and left the 
 monks dead or dying amid the blazing buildings. 
 There came a time when the Danes were not content 
 with merely coming as pirates. They determined to 
 conquer the country, and while they were endeavour- 
 ing to do this, Alfred was born. Landing on the 
 Hampshire shores, they swept up through the forests 
 into Berkshire, where the fighting was terrible. One 
 wonders how much of it was in the district where 
 Windsor was. The Saxons were in the greatest 
 extremity when Alfred was born. They were becom- 
 ing hopeless, for the Danes were triumphant every- 
 where when Alfred, who was only twenty-two at the 
 time, became king. The outlook for the young king, 
 whose palace was in Berkshire, was disheartening, 
 but he was a man with a great heart, and faced his 
 difficulties with a splendid courage. 
 
 The supremacy of his kingdom over the others 
 had vanished. Yet every kingdom in the land was 
 desolated by the Danes. The abbeys were sacked, 
 monks murdered, churches, schools, villages, and 
 homesteads were smoking ruins. Nowhere was the 
 desolation greater than in Berkshire, and one may 
 well suppose that all round Windsor the Danes had 
 been as cruel as anywhere.
 
 "THE SPOTLESS KING." 31 
 
 Although but two-and-twenty, Alfred was already a 
 seasoned warrior. He had been fighting ever since 
 he was a boy, and in the first year of his reign fought 
 as many as nine pitched battles. But they did not 
 end in the defeat of the Danes. Berkshire fell into 
 the hands of the invaders. The enemy then swept 
 through the county from Reading, and came with 
 such ferocity, and in such overwhelming numbers, that 
 Alfred was forced to retreat. Disbanding his dis- 
 couraged army, he fled to Athelney, in Sedgmoor, 
 at that time all flat land covered with bogs and 
 quagmires, lagoons, and reeds. None knew the way 
 into the marshes except the natives, and they were 
 uninhabitable save where the rising ground formed 
 an island in the midst of slush and mud. It was 
 here that King Alfred found a hiding-place. 
 
 Many stories are told concerning Alfred during 
 those hiding-days at Athelney, some of them true, 
 but most of them fable. One does not need to tell 
 the well-worn story of the cakes that were burnt in 
 the herdsman's hut ; but one of the many legends is 
 worth re-telling. 
 
 The old Saxon chronicler says, that one day all 
 Alfred's attendants had gone a-fishing, save a 
 favourite servant and the queen. A pilgrim came to 
 the door and asked for food, but there was only one 
 loaf and a little wine in the house. Alfred gave 
 thanks for the little there was, and bade his servant 
 give half to the beggar. When the servant returned 
 from showing the beggar the road, he found the loaf 
 uncut, and the wine all there, although he had just 
 given half of it away. Alfred's retainers came back
 
 32 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 after awhile from their fishing, bringing with them 
 more fish than they had ever caught before. None 
 of them had seen the pilgrim come, and they 
 wondered how he had found the entrance to the 
 island. 
 
 That night the king lay awake, and saw a light like 
 sunshine, and an old man appeared, dressed as a 
 priest, with a bejewelled book of the gospel in his 
 hand. He blessed the king, who asked the priest 
 his name. 
 
 " I am Cuthbert, the soldier of Christ," was the 
 stranger's answer. 
 
 The old man then bade the king be strong, and 
 bold, and joyous, and promised to be a shield to 
 him if he would do as he now told him. 
 
 " Say what I shall now do," was the king's ready 
 response. 
 
 " Rise, my son, to-morrow, at break of day. Blow 
 thrice the horn, and five hundred men shall appear to 
 do your bidding. Within seven days at your call the 
 Wessex men shall rally round your standard, and 
 your enemies shall be overcome. Lo ! God hath 
 given the kingdom to you, and to your son, and to 
 your son's sons after them." 
 
 Such is the legend, and whatever may be thought 
 of it, the fact is indisputable, that the king's fortunes 
 changed swiftly. Alfred came out of his hiding- 
 place in the marshes, advanced with an ever-growing 
 army against the Danes, slaughtered them by 
 hundreds, and marching on, met the great army of 
 the enemy at Ethandune, near Trowbridge, and 
 beleaguered the camp, purposing to starve them into
 
 34 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 surrender. In a few days the Danes were eating 
 their horses, and in a fortnight Guthrum, the Danish 
 general, was asking for terms. He was induced to 
 throw aside his paganism, and embrace the Christian 
 faith. 
 
 After that famous deed at Ethandune, in 878, 
 Alfred's wars ended. The Danes were not ready to 
 fight with him again, and either settled down as 
 farmers, and peaceful citizens, or sailed away to carry 
 on their piracies elsewhere. It is said that Ethandune 
 was on the borders of Berkshire, if not in it. But 
 whatever other part was played by Englishmen, 
 Berkshire has the glory of being the great battle- 
 ground whereon England was saved. 
 
 When the country found peace, the king began 
 to map out the counties, and Berkshire had its 
 boundaries fixed once for all. It was called Berroc 
 Scyre at the time, but why that name was given to it 
 is a matter of uncertainty. Among many suggestions 
 we find the following : that the name came from the 
 Bibroci, a British tribe that was in the district in the 
 olden days ; another suggestion was, that the name 
 came from two kinds of trees which grew in great 
 quantity in the forest the berroc, or box, and the 
 beorce, or beech. One other explanation is, that the 
 name came from " Bare Oak " in Windsor Forest, 
 where the Druids were wont to meet on solemn 
 occasions. Some have said that the old name of the 
 badger the brock gives the explanation. What- 
 ever the meaning may have been, we know that the 
 name changed gradually, until it came to its present 
 form.
 
 " THE SPOTLESS KING." 35 
 
 There is an old saying, that when the lion lay dead 
 the jackals returned. It was true with regard to 
 Berkshire's story. As soon as Alfred died the Danes 
 came back and began their old work of robbery and 
 murder. Berkshire was ravaged terribly. In 1006 
 they marched through the country, burning Walling- 
 ford and Reading. What else they would have 
 done it is impossible to say, but Ethelred II., 
 cowardly and irresolute, bought off the Danes, and 
 since they sailed away the land had peace for a 
 time. In 1013 they were back again, more cruel 
 than before, going through the land with fire, 
 murdering and pillaging everywhere, destroying 
 what was left of Wallingford, Abingdon, and Oxford. 
 From thence they marched to Staines. In doing so 
 they would go past Windsor. 
 
 Filled with dismay, Ethelred fled to Normandy, 
 and Sweyn, the leader of the Danes, made himself 
 King of England. Canute, Sweyn's son, came to the 
 throne when his father died, and once firmly seated 
 in it, became a great church builder. Every church 
 which had been burnt down when the Danes were 
 invading the land, was rebuilt, Berkshire, Bucking- 
 hamshire, and the surrounding counties thus becom- 
 ing filled with newly-built churches. Many a church 
 now standing owes its existence to Canute.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 WINDSOR'S EARLY DAYS. 
 
 DURING the Danish troubles Windsor did not call 
 for special mention in the wonderful story of the 
 rise of England to greatness, although there was a 
 little village hidden away in the mighty forest 
 which came up to the edge of the great mound 
 where the castle now stands. When we come 
 to the days of the later Saxon kings, then 
 WYNDLESHORA is marked down as a place which 
 the sovereigns loved to visit when they wanted 
 rest, or were eager to take part in the hunting 
 which the forest offered. 
 
 The palace at Wyndleshora was not the stately 
 castle which now stands on the summit of the great 
 chalk mound. It was two miles lower down the 
 river, nestling as it were in the forest, near to the 
 beautiful and now historic stream, and far removed 
 from the great road which ran straight through 
 the country, from north to south. None could reach 
 the picturesque timber hunting-lodge in any way 
 but by a bridle-path. Sport was abundant, for wild 
 animals were plentiful in the forest harts and boars
 
 WINDSOR'S EARLY DAYS. 37 
 
 and wolves. Old Windsor, as the village is called 
 to-day, stood all alone, surrounded by "old oaks 
 and elms growing round about as screens." 
 
 For one who wanted a few days' sport in the 
 magnificent hunting-grounds of Berkshire, Wyndle- 
 shora was an ideal centre, and many a time the 
 Saxon palace was gay with the presence of the 
 king and his courtiers. Gradually a town began 
 to form about the palace, which, when it was first 
 built, was a very lonely place. But the houses 
 were little more than mere huts for the foresters to 
 dwell in. Then came better buildings, fit for the 
 courtiers who came down from London with the 
 king. In the days when Harold fought William 
 the Conqueror at Hastings, in 1066, there were 
 at least a hundred clustering about the Royal 
 Lodge. 
 
 Edward the Confessor was particularly fond of 
 coming down to this place for the hunting. He 
 loved the old timber palace, which was built so 
 long ago, and yet no one knew by whom. Some 
 said that King Arthur of the Round Table was its 
 builder, and had often lived there, but it may have 
 been nothing more than fable, like so much that is 
 said concerning him. 
 
 Many things were said as to the doings at this 
 palace in the Great Forest. Fabyan, one of the 
 old Saxon historians, told of what happened on 
 Easter Monday, in the year 1053. Earl Godwin, 
 the king's father-in-law, was sitting with the king 
 and some of the lords, in what Fabyan calls the 
 Castell of Wynsore. During the dinner the king
 
 38 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 said something which convinced the earl that the 
 king believed him guilty of the murder of Edward's 
 brother in the previous reign. Earl Godwin turned 
 to the king and said : 
 
 " Sir, as I perceive well, it is told to thee that 
 I should be the cause of thy brother's death ; so 
 might I safely swallow this morsel of bread that 
 I hold here in my hand, as I am guiltless of the 
 deed." 
 
 As soon as the earl attempted to swallow the 
 bread, he choked, and died. 
 
 The Saxon days were rough and ready. Men 
 were not able to control their passions even in 
 the presence of royalty, and the sons of the dead 
 Earl Godwin were as lawless as any. Thus there 
 is another story told of something which took 
 place at the same palace in the forest, in the 
 year 1065. 
 
 "It happened in the presence of King Edward, 
 at Wyndleshore, Tosti, Earl of Northumberland, 
 moved with envy, seized by the hair his brother 
 Harold as he was pledging the king in a cup of 
 wine, and handled him shamefully, to the amaze- 
 ment of all the king's household. Provoked to 
 vengeance at this, Harold seized his brother in his 
 arms, and lifting him up, dashed him with violence 
 against the ground ; on which the soldiers rushed 
 forward from all sides, and put an end to the 
 contest between the famous brothers, and separated 
 them from each other." 
 
 Not long before Edward the Confessor died, he 
 gave Old Windsor the palace and the land, right
 
 WINDSOR'S EARLY DAYS. 39 
 
 on to Staines to the monks of Westminster, and 
 caused a number of bishops and nobles to write 
 their names on the deed as witnesses to the gift. 
 This was in January, 1066, or, as some place it, 
 at Christmas-time the year before. That same year 
 1066 William, Duke of Normandy, came over to 
 England with a great army, and fought and won 
 the Battle of Hastings. It ended in a disastrous 
 defeat for Harold, who lay dead on the field, 
 while the Norman, victorious, went through the 
 land, destroying everything where he met with 
 opposition. 
 
 The terrible march lay through Surrey, Hamp- 
 shire, and Berkshire, the army going along the 
 south bank of the Thames until Wallingford was 
 reached. Here William crossed the river, and 
 marched direct on London. 
 
 Having conquered England, William began to 
 build castles which would serve to make his position 
 secure. One of these was at Wallingford, the castle 
 which was already there not being deemed sufficiently 
 strong to hold the discontented Saxons in check. 
 It was near enough, so William thought, to terrify 
 the people of London. 
 
 When the Conqueror rode to Windsor, thinking 
 to take possession of the palace in the forest, he 
 saw the great chalk mound. His masterly military 
 mind at once comprehended the wonderful advan- 
 tages which this great hill in the Manor of Clewer 
 afforded. A stronghold erected on the spot which 
 commanded a view of many of the surrounding 
 counties, would enable the owner to watch what was
 
 40 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 doing in the district. He had come into possession 
 of the forest palace and its surrounding property 
 by making an exchange with the monks of West- 
 minster, giving them some valuable land that lay in 
 Essex. The reason the Conqueror gave for want- 
 ing to make the exchange was, that he desired 
 to possess it because it was a fine hunting-ground, 
 and also because of the pureness of the air, the 
 pleasantness of the situation, and the wood and 
 waters that were near. 
 
 Undoubtedly the principal motive in the king's 
 mind was his wish to build a great castle on that 
 hill which stood in Clewer Manor. This manor had 
 been the property of Harold, who was now dead. 
 With this castle in his possession he could keep 
 London in order, and Reading, Oxford, Buckingham- 
 shire, and all Berkshire all could be easily reached 
 in case of insurrection, which constantly threatened. 
 
 There is no description of the castle which William 
 built. Naturally enough it would resemble those 
 strongholds it was the custom of the Normans to 
 build in their own country. One may, therefore, 
 imagine the keep, built on the highest ground, 
 with a great open walled-in space around it. The 
 only entrance to the citadel was by means of a very 
 steep flight of stone steps, twisting in all direc- 
 tions, and so placed that none could mount them 
 without being exposed to the merciless rain of 
 arrows and other missiles from the defenders above. 
 One cannot imagine a man living sufficiently long 
 in the terrific storm of arrows and stones and 
 boiling oil to reach the entrance to the keep, and
 
 42 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 there begin to break in the door with his battle-axe. 
 If the defenders were brave, the citadel might well 
 defy the enemy, and they would only yield to starva- 
 tion or treachery. 
 
 This windowless place, the walls of which were 
 only broken by slits large enough to allow the 
 archer to shoot his arrow through, was the last 
 retreat of the defenders, for a great rampart or 
 wall ran all round this inner space, and a deep 
 ditch was on the outer side ; beyond were the out- 
 works, made up of a high wall of tremendous 
 thickness. On this was a parapet, or wall, about 
 waist-high, behind which the defending soldiers 
 could stoop when arrows were flying quickly. At 
 various parts along this great wall were towers from 
 whence the defenders could watch what their 
 enemies were doing. Inside this great outer wall 
 houses were built for the lord of the place and 
 others who did not care to be shut up in the 
 dismal keep unless it was necessary. 
 
 Windsor Castle must have been similar to that. 
 William chose to call it a hunting-lodge, but people 
 knew it to be more than that, for it was a fortress 
 of immense strength. From its walls the king 
 could see the winding river which wended its stately 
 way through some of the country he had conquered. 
 At sunset came the sound of the curfew bell, and 
 the stamp of the hoofs of the Norman horses. The 
 soldiers were coming in from some fight with 
 rebellious Saxons in the country round. 
 
 The Conqueror little thought of the great story 
 which began with the building of his castle ; of
 
 44 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 splendid feasts and tournaments, of the coming 
 of captive kings, of all the pomp of chivalry, of 
 sieges, and joyous days, of heavy sorrows that were 
 to come to this place which was destined to be 
 the home of England's sovereigns.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WINDSOR AFTER THE CONQUEST. 
 
 ABOUT this stronghold a town sprang up, which was 
 destined to be known the whole world over ; but no 
 one tells us about its beginnings. The people who 
 began to build huts, or more respectable dwellings, 
 close up to the walls of the castle, could scarcely be 
 Normans or at most but few of them for the 
 conquerors were not numerous enough to settle 
 down in the country to steady-going, ordinary life. 
 They had to live the life of soldiers, for there were 
 insurrections daily, since the English were not 
 disposed to yield tamely. Not only so, the men 
 who came over with the Conqueror loved war, and 
 did not care to be busy in the fields, or to go into 
 trade. 
 
 When Duke William became king, and rewarded 
 his followers with lands in various parts of England, 
 these knights and nobles took their armed retainers 
 with them to their new homes. Those who remained 
 with the king were not more than sufficient to 
 garrison the castles which he built in Berkshire and 
 in other parts of the country. Since he could not 
 remain in Windsor, he placed the castle in the care
 
 46 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 of William Fitz-Other, who had received the manor 
 of Eton, which took in the country as far as Stoke 
 and Burnham. 
 
 Fitz-Other's office was that of Constable of the 
 castle and Warden of the forest. At the time there 
 was a village at Eton, some of the people who lived 
 there working at the two corn mills. Probably some 
 of them removed to Windsor, and built huts and 
 small houses outside the castle walls, to be within 
 reach of their master, the lord of the manor. There 
 would also be serfs and swineherds who would 
 naturally come as near to the castle as possible for 
 safety's sake in such rough and ready times, when 
 men cared little for law and order. It is also likely 
 that some deserted Old Windsor, and came to the 
 little town under the castle walls to New Windsor, 
 as it began to be called in order to find protection 
 from the banditti, or wandering robbers, and the out- 
 lawed Saxons who had been driven from their homes 
 because they would not submit to the conquering 
 Normans. These roamed through the land, doing 
 endless damage wherever they went. 
 
 There was also an attraction for traders, now that 
 a castle had sprung up. These came with their 
 wares, and finding constant and ready sales for them 
 among the soldiers and people of the town, they 
 deemed it worth their while to build shops as near as 
 they were allowed to the castle gates. Then, again, 
 there were others whose duties were done inside the 
 castle walls, but for whom there was not house room. 
 These also had homes built as near to the gates as 
 possible.
 
 
 2
 
 48 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 In such a way the town of New Windsor was 
 commenced, and was destined to grow or decrease 
 in size and prosperity, according to the changing 
 fortunes of the castle. 
 
 The town increased in importance when the kings 
 began to hold their courts in Windsor. William II. 
 held one here in 1095, and called on all who 
 held lands from him to attend it. It was a great, 
 and, one may suppose, a magnificent assembly, but 
 not a half of those who came could find living room 
 inside the castle. They had to find lodging in the 
 town, and that meant money for those who had 
 rooms to let. The king's visit was possibly due to 
 his love of hunting, for the Normans delighted in 
 forest sport. They loved the high deer, it is said, 
 passionately, and William the Conqueror was so 
 stern in making the forest laws, that the most cruel 
 penalties were inflicted on any who dared to hunt in 
 the royal forests without permission. 
 
 Henry I. held a court in Windsor in 1110. 
 To accommodate within the ramparts all the lords 
 and ladies who came at the king's command was 
 impossible. There was need for houses where the 
 attendants on royalty could lodge, and one can 
 imagine that the lodging was not of the best. 
 Doubtless some gallant knight and his esquire, and 
 many a dainty lady who was waiting on the queen, 
 had to be content with sleeping room, if not in a 
 swineherd's hut, at all events in the rough homes of 
 some of the shopkeepers of New Windsor. 
 
 In the course of years, in days when religion 
 played so large a part in the life of the people, a
 
 g 1
 
 50 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 church was built in every village of any size. In the 
 Domesday Book, which told all about the towns and 
 villages in England, there is no mention of any 
 church in Old Windsor not even the usual wooden 
 church of the Saxons ; neither was there one at 
 Clewer, nor at Eton, on the other side of the river. 
 
 This is somewhat remarkable, because, as one 
 writer says, "The Norman felt, like David, it was 
 not meet that he should dwell in a fine house while 
 the house of God was poor and mean. So when 
 the manor-house or castle had been built, and the 
 land was at peace, the wooden churches of the 
 Saxon villages on the estate were rebuilt in stone, 
 after the Norman manner. There is scarcely a 
 Berkshire village but has some remains of the church 
 built by the Norman lord in the century following 
 the Conquest." 
 
 It has "so far been impossible to find any trace of a 
 church in Windsor, nor is there any mention of one 
 until the reign of Richard I. There was evidently 
 nothing better than some small chapel, probably a 
 wooden one, until 1189; but in that year Windsor 
 had become sufficiently important to call for a 
 church, either of wood or stone. Richard granted 
 the chapel of Old Windsor, and the church of St. 
 John the Baptist at New Windsor, to the monastery 
 of Waltham. Eton Church was expressly men- 
 tioned some twenty years later in 1210 when the 
 lord of the manor and the prior of Merton had a 
 dispute concerning it. 
 
 None of the Norman kings seem to have done as 
 much for Windsor as Henry I., and none came to
 
 i 
 
 o, 

 
 52 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 the place so often. From the outset of his reign he 
 determined to convert the castle into a stronghold 
 worthy of the sovereign, and to make it also a 
 residence fit for royalty. He suggested the changes 
 he desired, and then crossed over to Normandy, 
 where there was trouble with his brother Robert. 
 He left Queen Matilda in Windsor to superintend 
 the building, and she was not slow in changing the 
 place into a king's house of great magnificence. 
 
 When Henry returned to England he travelled 
 down to Windsor from time to time, and saw the 
 place grow in strength and beauty. It was even 
 then one of the finest castles in his kingdom. When 
 he had done to it all that he intended, he came here 
 and held courts again and again. 
 
 Many important events occurred here in the later 
 days of Henry's reign. The king's first wife being 
 dead he married the niece of Pope Calixtus, and the 
 marriage was the occasion of an amazing incident. 
 The royal party assembled at the castle for the 
 ceremony, but it did not take place that day. The 
 Bishop of Salisbury was there to officiate at the 
 king's desire, but the old Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 who was present, made an angry protest. 
 
 " By what right does my lord of Salisbury per- 
 form the duties which belong to my office ? " he 
 cried. 
 
 " By the right that the Castle of Windsor is in my 
 diocese," was the bishop's sharp retort. 
 
 The archbishop would not accept the answer. 
 
 " My lord of Salisbury," he exclaimed, " wherever 
 the king and queen may go within the realm of
 
 WINDSOR AFTER THE CONQUEST. 53 
 
 England, there is my parish, and I therefore claim 
 the right to marry them to-day." 
 
 The dispute was carried on so hotly that the 
 archbishop raised his hand to strike the king, who 
 had bidden the bishop proceed. His Grace of 
 Canterbury, however, was so persistent in his claim 
 that the marriage was postponed. At a later day the 
 archbishop had his way, and married the king. 
 
 David, King of Scotland, was one of Henry's 
 visitors at Windsor, and for a whole year he was the 
 king's guest, here and elsewhere within the realm. 
 But most important of all was the coming of Henry 
 to Windsor in the Christmas of 1127, when the 
 Scottish monarch came, and " all the head men of 
 England, both clergy and laity," were summoned. 
 It was the occasion of a further quarrel between 
 Church dignitaries ; but this time they were the 
 Archbishops of Canterbury and York, both of whom 
 desired to perform the ceremony of crowning the 
 king according to Henry's custom at great festivals. 
 The Primate of York so angered the king that his 
 Grace's cross-bearer was turned out of the chapel 
 roughly, and the cross he carried flung after him. 
 
 The importance of the assembly lay in this, that 
 Henry required the great men who were present to 
 swear that when he died they would place his 
 daughter Matilda on the throne. The oath was 
 taken, and the king expressed his contentment in 
 spite of his sorrow that he had no son to succeed 
 him. Henry had looked forward to his son, Prince 
 William, succeeding him, but the prince was 
 drowned. Many a time, while he added to the
 
 54 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 splendour of the castle, he had pictured the glory of 
 his son's reign, and thought of the days that were to 
 come when the English people, who still hated the 
 Normans, would become content under his son's 
 rule. 
 
 But he was doomed to disappointment. He had 
 been to Normandy, and was starting on his return 
 from Barfleur. He left his son to follow, but the 
 young prince was delayed. The captain and the 
 sailors of "The White Ship" spent the hours of 
 waiting in hard drinking, so that when Prince 
 William and his sister stepped on board, the crew 
 were drunk and reckless. With the prince were 140 
 young nobles, and many ladies of the highest rank 
 three hundred souls in all. It was growing late, and 
 the men at the oars, rowing madly, regardless of 
 warning, and heedless of the dangers, sent the vessel 
 on at a tremendous rate. Then came a crash. " The 
 White Ship" was on a hidden rock! An awful panic 
 followed. Fitz-Stephen, the captain, hurried the 
 prince and a few others into a boat, but when the 
 sailors had pulled a little way from the ship, William 
 remembered his sister, and ordered the men to pull 
 back for her. 
 
 " 'Tis madness, prince," protested one. 
 
 " I care not. I hear my sister's cry. She shall 
 not die ! " 
 
 When the boat drew alongside the sinking vessel, 
 the panic-stricken ones leaped into her ; the boat 
 was instantly upset, and at the same moment " The 
 White Ship" went down. 
 
 When Henry heard of the catastrophe, the

 
 56 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 pleasure of life was gone. His grief was so great 
 that he fell senseless to the floor. The story is 
 everywhere told that after that day of bitter loss he 
 was never seen to smile. His grief was the greater 
 because he foresaw endless misery for England in the 
 future, the misery of civil war, if he did not secure 
 from his nobles this oath that they would place the 
 crown on his daughter's head. If that could be 
 done all would be well ; but if they refused, the 
 consequences were terrible to think of. 
 
 It was an infinite relief to the king when, without 
 demur, every lord present at the Great Council 
 stepped forward and took the oath of fealty to the 
 Princess Matilda. 
 
 From that day onward Henry ruled England with 
 a strong hand, coming often to Windsor as the home 
 he loved the best, so that under his eye things 
 seemed to go well for those who dwelt in the royal 
 town. Yet Windsor was not altogether a pleasant 
 place to live in. "The tenants in the king's demesne 
 lands were obliged to supply the court with pro- 
 visions without charge," which was a scandalous 
 thing, if it were true, and most certainly it was. It 
 was also said that the Windsor people had to 
 " furnish carriages on the same hard terms, when the 
 king made a progress, as he frequently did, into any 
 of the counties." 
 
 Had this been done occasionally it would have 
 been a harsh demand ; but it was so often made, and 
 there the cruelty came in. It may have been that 
 the Constable of the castle, or some other official 
 exacted this, and thereby made money ; one cannot
 
 WINDSOR AFTER THE CONQUEST. 57 
 
 say. Under any consideration the course was unjust, 
 and to make things worse, the claims were enforced 
 mercilessly, and often ruined the people concerned. 
 So many were the demands at last upon the shop- 
 keepers and the farmers of the district, that many 
 left their homes by stealth, since by remaining they 
 could see nothing but ruin. 
 
 It was to Henry's credit that he put a stop to 
 these methods when he heard of them, but the 
 mischief began afresh when he was dead.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A TURBULENT REIGN. 
 
 AT the Assembly where Henry exacted the pledge 
 from the great men of the nation as to his daughter's 
 succession to the throne, Stephen, the king's nephew, 
 showed more readiness than" any other to take the 
 oath. But as soon as Henry lay dead, which was in 
 the year 1135, the prince put aside his promises, and 
 claimed the crown. The people, and many of the 
 lords, caring more for a king than a queen, in such 
 rough and ready days, when men were always eager 
 for war, turned to Stephen, and made him king. 
 He was received with shouts of welcome when he 
 rode through the streets of London. 
 
 War followed instantly. Many of the barons, 
 remembering their oath, rallied round Matilda, and 
 the fight for the crown became so terrible, that 
 " there was such a time as England never saw before. 
 All law vanished, and there was nothing but blood- 
 shed and plunder. The land lay desolate ; men 
 were tortured to death and starved with hunger. So 
 great was the violence and cruelty of this civil war, 
 that men said openly, that Christ and His saints 
 were asleep."
 
 A TURBULENT REIGN. 59 
 
 In those days, when the king was more concerned 
 for keeping his crown than for the welfare of the 
 people, the woods were filled with robbers. The 
 Great Windsor Forest was crowded with them, so 
 that to attempt to pass through it without a strong 
 guard of armed men was to court robbery and 
 certain death. No one felt safe, whether in town or 
 country, and when the people closed their doors and 
 windows at night, it was their custom to kneel 
 and pray that they might rest and sleep in peace 
 and quietness, and not be done to death by 
 thieves and robbers. 
 
 One of the most disastrous effects of this civil war 
 was the permission Stephen gave to his barons to 
 build castles on their estates. The consequence was 
 that the country became full of them. The barons 
 filled them with mercenaries, or hired soldiers, men 
 who made war their trade, and with these at their 
 backs, they rode forth to fight some other lord, and 
 burn his home, and the village, after having robbed 
 the houses of all that was of value. They showed 
 no mercy anywhere, and after filling the countryside 
 with horror, they rode home, leaving behind them 
 burning farmsteads. 
 
 Berkshire had its full share of these castles. 
 Matilda's brother, Duke Robert of Gloucester, built 
 one at Faringdon, now a pretty market-town among 
 the hills, and just at the point where the ferry lay at 
 the Thames. To frustrate Matilda's capable general, 
 who had done this thing, Stephen built one at 
 Brightvvell, near enough to keep an eye on Walling- 
 ford, which, throughout the war, was on Matilda's side.
 
 60 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 The war was carried on fiercely. Now victory lay 
 on this side, then on that. At one time Stephen 
 was taken prisoner, and was shut up in Bristol 
 Castle ; and so resolute were his captors that he 
 should feel the pain of captivity, after breaking his 
 oath, that they loaded him with chains. During his 
 imprisonment in the castle, Matilda was crowned 
 queen. She might have reigned until her death, 
 but she used her power so unwisely that her chief 
 supporters deserted her in anger and disappointment. 
 Some of them went to Bristol and set Stephen free, 
 making him king again. After that the discrowned 
 queen met with adversity. She hurried into Oxford 
 with what soldiers she had, sending messengers in all 
 directions, asking her friends to come to her with 
 their armed retainers. Stephen, however, brought up 
 an army, and besieged Oxford with such persistency 
 that her hope died out. 
 
 While the king surrounded the town as it were 
 with a ring of steel, snow fell heavily one night, and 
 covered the country. Matilda saw her opportunity. 
 Dressed in white, she and four armed knights stole 
 out of the castle while the storm was raging, and 
 crossed the river which was thickly coated with ice. 
 The snow had hidden every landmark, but the royal 
 fugitive pressed on all through the night, and did not 
 halt until she had reached Abingdon. The abbot at 
 the monastery provided her with some horses, and 
 sent her on her way to Wallingford, where she 
 found her friends. 
 
 It is strange that throughout this fierce war none 
 of the rival princes came to Windsor, although it
 
 A TURBULENT REIGN. 61 
 
 was the strongest place in the land, and could have 
 been defended against a very great army. It is 
 stranger still when it is remembered that a great 
 deal of the fighting took place in Berkshire. 
 Prince Henry, afterwards Henry II., persuaded his 
 mother to return to France. Stephen, not knowing 
 that she had gone, besieged Wallingford, believing 
 that Matilda was there. Thereupon Henry brought 
 up his army, which proved so strong, that Stephen 
 fell back on London. 
 
 No sooner had Henry marched away from 
 Wallingford, than Stephen, still convinced that 
 Matilda was in the castle, returned, and again Prince 
 Henry came. A battle was to be fought one 
 which was to decide the fate of the nation but 
 some of the leading men on both sides, tired of the 
 war, proposed that peace might be considered. The 
 advice was followed, and the Treaty of Wallingford 
 was signed. 
 
 Some castles were named which were to be 
 destroyed ; the hired soldiers brought into England 
 by both parties were to be paid off, and sent out 
 of the country ; the lands that had been taken from 
 their owners after some of the fights were to be 
 given back to their proper owners ; Stephen was to 
 be king during his lifetime, and Henry to be his 
 successor. 
 
 In the meantime Windsor was placed in the care 
 of Richard de Lucy, to be held by him until Henry 
 should be king.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A TREACHEROUS PRINCE. 
 
 PRINCE HENRY had but a few months to wait 
 before he became king, for Stephen died. This was 
 in 1154, when De Lucy delivered the castle to 
 Henry, according to agreement. 
 
 Henry II. was often at Windsor. The place had 
 a great charm for him, and determined to make it as 
 strong and beautiful as possible, he spent what in 
 those days was thought to be a considerable sum of 
 money. Here, also, he very often kept court, and 
 kings from distant lands came to the magnificent 
 castle by the Thames, one being William of 
 Scotland, and another, Roderic, King of Connaught. 
 
 Although he ranks as one of our greatest kings 
 Henry was not a happy man. He was a king of 
 many cares, alike in his kingdom and in his home. 
 His sons were so rebellious that he was heard to 
 say, when he lay dying, " The curses of God be on 
 the sons I leave behind me." Fabyan, the chronicler, 
 says that " in a chamber at Wyndsore, he (the king) 
 caused to be painted an eagle with four birds, 
 whereof three of them all rased (scratched) the body
 
 A TREACHEROUS PRINCE. 63 
 
 of the old eagle's eyes. When the question was 
 asked of him what thing that picture should mean ? 
 it was answered by him, 'This old eagle is myself ; 
 and these four eagles are my four sons, the which 
 cease not to seek my death, and especially my 
 youngest son John, which now I love the most, 
 shall most especially await and imagine my death.' " 
 
 This personal sorrow was made the greater because 
 the revolts of his sons drew him to the camp when 
 he most wanted to be quiet in Windsor. The 
 greatest king of his day was certainly the saddest, 
 for he found his sons fighting on the side of his 
 enemies. When he asked for the names of those 
 who were conspiring against him, the name of John, 
 the son he loved the most, was at the head of the 
 list. It broke his heart, and turning his face to the 
 wall he exclaimed, " Now let all things go as they 
 will ! I care no more for myself, nor for the 
 world." 
 
 And then he died. 
 
 King Richard I. in no way comes into the story 
 of Royal Windsor, for while he may have been 
 lodged in the castle often in his youth, he was too 
 much of a soldier, and too eager to play his part in 
 the Crusade either to trouble himself about his 
 kingdom, or his splendid palace by the Thames. 
 He had nothing of the statesman about him, and 
 when one considers how he neglected England, and 
 how because of that so much misery came to the 
 people, one may think that it was a dark day for 
 England when he came to the throne in 1189. 
 
 Richard was a soldier beyond all else, and when
 
 64 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 he had resolved to take his part in the Third Crusade 
 for the recovery of Jerusalem from the Saracens, 
 because the Saviour's tomb was there, and also to 
 fight the famous- Saladin, he was ready to forfeit 
 everything rather than not take part in the enterprise. 
 To obtain money for making his army ready, he sold 
 lands, earldoms, and public offices, and it is said that 
 he even sold for ten thousand marks, the right which 
 he possessed of compelling the King of Scotland to 
 do homage to him. 
 
 " I would sell London if I could find a man to 
 buy it ! " he exclaimed, when someone protested 
 against his methods of raising money. 
 
 Windsor was destined to experience bad times 
 during the king's absence in the Holy Land. The 
 monarch took steps for the safe keeping of the 
 castle, and ordered Hugh de Pudsey, Bishop of 
 Durham, to occupy it as the strongest post in the 
 realm, and therefore the most fitting spot for him to 
 rule the land since he was regent. Many were 
 anxious to obtain possession of the castle, since the 
 holding of it would enable them to do as they pleased 
 in the land without considering laws or any other 
 thing. But the warlike bishop held the castle with 
 a strong hand. 
 
 Longchamp, the ambitious Bishop of Ely, rode 
 down to Windsor one day, and bade Pudsey 
 surrender the castle to him. The prelate, not 
 thinking that his servants had turned traitors, 
 refused, and was instantly seized and flung into one 
 of the dungeons of the castle, where he was kept on 
 such scanty fare that starvation faced him. He was,
 
 66 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 therefore, compelled to do as Longchamp demanded, 
 for what else could a starving prisoner do ? Then 
 Longchamp pulled down Pudsey's flag, ran up his 
 own, "assumed the constable's staff, and took 
 possession of the Norman keep." His flag now 
 floated on the great tower, and he seemed, as master 
 of Windsor Castle, to have the kingdom at his 
 feet. 
 
 All this was part of a conspiracy formed by Prince 
 John, who was as treacherous a brother as he had 
 been a son. When news came that Richard, while 
 on his way home from Palestine, had been made a 
 prisoner by the Emperor of Germany, and was flung 
 into a dungeon, and loaded with chains, John did not 
 attempt to raise the ransom-money, but did all that 
 could be done to get the kingdom for his own. We 
 are told how he crossed over to France, and made a 
 treaty with the French King, the object being to ruin 
 his captive brother. Philip was to receive a great 
 part of Normandy, while John was to have the 
 French monarch's help in obtaining the crown of 
 England. 
 
 Pretending that he had heard that Richard was 
 dead, John came to England in hot haste, and rode 
 down to Windsor, to gain possession of the castle, 
 which he instantly put into a state of defence, 
 knowing that at any time he might be besieged by 
 his brother's friends. He also secured the castle at 
 Wallingford, and having done so much, he claimed 
 the crown. 
 
 None believed his lying statement as to his 
 brother's death. The barons gathered an army, and
 
 A TREACHEROUS PRINCE. 67 
 
 not only captured such castles as he had obtained 
 elsewhere, but drove him out of the two great 
 Berkshire strongholds also. The news came that 
 Richard was still alive and in captivity. The amount 
 wanted for the ransom of the king was also named. 
 The sum fixed by the emperor was enormous ; no 
 less than 150,000 marks, equal to 300,000 in 
 present-day money. But the barons raised every 
 penny of it, since they loved the " Lion-hearted 
 King," as he was called. Wallingford Castle and 
 Windsor Castle were both given into the care of the 
 king's mother, Queen Eleanor, and she held both 
 places with strong garrisons until her son returned. 
 
 John paid dearly for his treachery. The most 
 forgiving of brothers, Richard feared to give the 
 prince another opportunity for further treachery ; 
 nor did he interfere when the Council of Barons 
 confiscated all the possessions of John in England. 
 
 Unfortunately for the nation, the crown came into 
 John's hands when Richard was slain in battle in 
 1199. The judgment passed on John by one 
 historian was richly deserved when it ran thus : " The 
 character of this prince is nothing but a complica- 
 tion of vices, equally mean and odious ; ruinous to 
 himself and destructive to his people." Yet, in spite 
 of his folly and wickedness, he was the means of 
 winning for England her most splendid Charter of 
 Liberty. 
 
 Windsor was closely associated with the doings of 
 that memorable day when liberty was so splendidly 
 won for the English people. Indeed, the town and 
 castle played a large part in King John's reign. 
 
 F
 
 68 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 Hepworth Dixon says that King John was so fond 
 of Windsor, that after his usurpation of the crown, 
 "he was never long away from the royal house. 
 Winter and summer he lodged on the Windsor ridge. 
 Here he kept his festivals, and held his councils ; 
 here he laid up his stores of corn and wine, of cloth 
 and spice. Windsor was for him a safer stronghold 
 than the Tower, and hither he removed his jewels 
 and his plate. More than Winchester, and more 
 than Westminster, Windsor became the residence of 
 his court, the scenery of his intrigues, and the 
 witness of his many cruelties. To Windsor flocked 
 all those who wished to gain his smiles. Even when 
 the thunders of Holy Church were rolling through 
 the sky, Windsor was crowded by his knights and 
 barons. Windsor was the centre of events, both 
 private and public, in his dark and sinister reign." 
 
 Undoubtedly, the monarch came to Windsor 
 because he felt himself more secure behind its 
 mighty walls, for he knew full well the hatred he 
 was winning from men and women of every rank. 
 Nothing could be said that would over-estimate the 
 misery of England under the rule of this wicked 
 king. Life was almost unbearable under John, 
 while his brother Richard was away in the Holy 
 Land ; but his cruelties, the way in which he seized 
 the goods of the people, and the many other wrongs 
 which were done to the defenceless, led the most 
 peaceable to express their anger loudly. 
 
 John acted so scandalously that he was unable to 
 call the nobles to order. What they saw him do, 
 they felt they could do themselves, so that the
 
 A TREACHEROUS PRINCE. 69 
 
 people suffered twice over, and they found life 
 intolerable. The peasant was no better than a slave, 
 and if by industry he saved enough money to get a 
 comfortable home, he was plundered by his own 
 lord, whom it was his lot to serve. His home was 
 never safe, nor was his life, nor the lives of his wife 
 and children. The humblest hut, and the coarsest 
 fare were thought too good for the poor villein or 
 man of the lowest order in those days. They were 
 counted no better than cattle. t; Why should villeins 
 eat beef or any dainty food ? " was the question put 
 by the rich lord, and the king was as ready with 
 that question as anyone in the land. 
 
 John was destined to quarrel with all classes of 
 men, his nobles, the people, and the Pope. The 
 quarrel with Pope Innocent III., when John sent his 
 defiance from Windsor, had disastrous consequences, 
 and every part of the realm suffered terribly, through 
 his wilfulness and obstinacy. His Holiness, angered 
 at the king's conduct, placed the whole kingdom 
 under an interdict. Because of this all the churches 
 were shut. The dead remained unburied, unless the 
 burial took place in unconsecrated ground. No 
 knell tolled for the dead. No merry peals of bells 
 welcomed the bridal procession, for no couple during 
 an interdict could be married. An infant could be 
 baptized, and the dying might receive extreme 
 unction ; but no other service could be rendered. 
 For six long years this misery lasted, since John 
 would not yield. 
 
 Meanwhile the king carried a great army to 
 Ireland, and one of the barons, named William de
 
 70 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 Braiose, fled at the approach of the English army, 
 since he had offended the sovereign. Finding his 
 wife and son, John sent them to Windsor, and 
 caused them to be starved to death in one of the 
 towers. 
 
 The story of the imprisonment of the mother and 
 her son is one of the many tales of cruelty laid to 
 the account of this unworthy king. They were 
 brought to Windsor, and thrust into a chamber. 
 Before the door was locked upon them the men 
 tossed in after them a sheaf of corn, and a piece of 
 raw bacon. Then the door was closed, and was not 
 opened until it was certain that starvation had done 
 its work. When the constable of the castle entered 
 the chamber both were dead. The mother was 
 sitting between her son's knees, while he sat like her, 
 dead. The cruelty of this imprisonment was the 
 greater because it was agreed that they should be 
 set free on payment of a ransom of 50,000 marks ; 
 but while the baron was known to be getting the 
 ransom-money together, the two whose liberty was 
 to be bought at so great a price were thrust into the 
 prison-room to die. 
 
 One by one the king's supporters dropped away, 
 not only because the Pope had deposed him, and 
 offered the crown of England to the French monarch, 
 but because he had wilfully defied the laws of the 
 land. It was vain to tell him that it was the 
 monarch's duty to protect his subjects " in their 
 lives, properties, and laws." Hence the barons and 
 the great churchmen banded together to compel him 
 to rule in accordance with the law of the realm.
 
 A TREACHEROUS PRINCE. 71 
 
 While all this was being done, John was at 
 Windsor, where he thought he was safe. He came 
 and went at all times, sending into the castle a stream 
 of supplies, in case his barons went to war with him. 
 These came up the river in barges. Whatever his 
 troubles with the great men of the realm, the king 
 did not fail to enjoy himself, and within Windsor 
 Castle there was a succession of great festivities.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE GREAT DAY AT RUNNYMEAD. 
 
 JOHN knew full well that the wrath of his nobles 
 was on the increase, and that the people were crying 
 for vengeance, because of his unbounded wickedness. 
 Again and again he came to Windsor in the early 
 part of the year 1215, and at every visit he saw to 
 the soundness of the castle's defences, and brought 
 the garrison up to its full strength. Every weak 
 point received attention, and the place seemed to be 
 too strong for the greatest army to think of taking 
 it. 
 
 So desperate were John's affairs as the summer 
 approached, that when the barons demanded a 
 meeting at Runnymead, to discuss the troubles of 
 the kingdom, he did not dare to refuse, lest they 
 should turn him out of his throne, and give the 
 crown to the King of France. He knew that a 
 mighty army was assembling, and that if he shut 
 himself within the castle at Windsor, they would 
 surround him and starve him into surrender. His 
 only hope lay in the foreign mercenaries, or hired
 
 74 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 soldiers, whom his agents were gathering together 
 on the continent ; but they were not yet on the way 
 to England, and what soldiers he had were too few 
 to fight with what the barons called " The Army of 
 God and Holy Church." 
 
 The appointed day the I5th of June, 1215 was 
 destined to be one of the most memorable in 
 England's history. It was a glowing summer morn- 
 ing. The great meadow of Runnymead which 
 spread out beside the slowly moving river was 
 spangled with wild flowers. On the side away from 
 the water rose the tree-clad hills, from whence the 
 towers of Windsor Castle could be seen, with the 
 stately banner of England floating over the Keep. 
 None thought that the beautiful field was to witness 
 such a scene as that which came ere the day was 
 gone, and that on the island in mid-stream the 
 king would be in hot discussion with mail-clad 
 knights, John contending for his throne, and so- 
 called rights, to tyrannize as he chose, and the 
 nobles determined to win great liberty for the 
 nation. 
 
 As the hours of the morning passed, armed men 
 began to appear, some of them nobles in shining 
 armour, followed by their retainers, or mail-clad 
 servants. Some came up the stream in barges, many 
 or few in every separate company, according to the 
 wealth or greatness of their noble master. Others 
 came down the hill slopes, their armour and their 
 helmets gleaming, their pennons fluttering, and the 
 sound of rattling mail and snorting horses, and trum- 
 pet blast breaking up the silence of the mead. They
 
 THE GREAT DAY AT RUNNYMEAD. 75 
 
 came in thousands, so that by noon there was a 
 mighty army, rank on rank of steel-clad horse, and 
 armoured footmen, trampling the grass and flowers 
 beneath their feet. 
 
 It was a place to which other kings had come in 
 Saxon days to hold their Witan, or Saxon parlia- 
 ment ; and beneath the trees which shaded them 
 from the sun, men considered how best to deal with 
 the great questions which called for their attention. 
 The people had met at Runnymead before to demand 
 their liberties, and therefore this place was named by 
 those who wished to confer with the king. The 
 barons and great Churchmen felt that it was a 
 fitting meeting ground where liberty was to be won 
 or lost, since for centuries it had been known as 
 the Runemead, or Meadow of Council. 
 
 After long waiting the king was seen coming 
 down the river in the royal barge. He came with a 
 small and scarcely royal company, but in his barge 
 were Pandulph, the Papal Legate, and Almeric, the 
 Master of the Temple. Men spoke of the sullen 
 look upon the face of the king, and marked how he 
 barely returned the salute of the army in the 
 meadow, where swords flashed in the sunshine and 
 lanceheads gleamed. 
 
 In the centre of the little island was a magnificent 
 pavilion, over which the royal banner floated lazily 
 in the breeze. About its entrance had gathered 
 England's great lords and her proudest Churchmen. 
 They and others had met elsewhere, and had sworn 
 solemnly that if " the king delayed any longer to 
 restore the laws and liberties, they would withdraw
 
 76 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 their allegiance, and would make war upon him until 
 he should confirm the concession by a sealed charter.' 
 They had come to Runnymead that day to show 
 the charter to the king, and to obtain his signature 
 on it. 
 
 Within the pavilion John debated hotly, almost 
 savagely, every clause which dealt with the liberties 
 of the people, for why should freedom be given to 
 those who had hitherto been little more than slaves ? 
 He said he would not sign. But when he gazed 
 around, and saw the look on the faces of the men 
 who were present, he took up his pen, and wrote his 
 name on the famous parchment. 
 
 The mighty cheer that went up from the armed 
 men on Runnymead, as John stepped into his barge, 
 was not for the king. It came because the soldiers, 
 seeing the faces of their lords, knew that the liberty 
 they longed for had been won. While they marched 
 home that summer evening, they discussed what 
 MAGNA CHARTA meant for England. Justice was 
 no more to be bought or sold ; merchants were able 
 in future to transact their business without being 
 compelled to pay heavy tolls and scandalous taxes ; 
 no freeman could now be put into prison or robbed 
 of his liberty, or outlawed, or banished from the land 
 without having had fair trial, according to the law; 
 the peasantry the most numerous class in the king- 
 dom could not have their carts, and ploughs, and 
 implements by which they got their living, taken 
 from them, since their loss would mean ruin or 
 starvation. 
 
 There was many a light heart in England while
 
 THE GREAT DAY AT RUNNYMEAD. 77 
 
 the king was going up the river to his home in 
 Windsor Castle. He was furious, and vowing terrible 
 things ; but there was joy throughout England when 
 the news spread far and wide.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE BARONS' WAR. 
 
 JOHN signed the Charter, but he never intended to 
 keep his promises. Glancing from time to time 
 through the open entrance of the royal pavilion, he 
 saw the army of the barons how great it was, and 
 felt himself a prisoner, and that he would never get 
 away in safety unless he wrote his name on that 
 piece of parchment. When he had written it, and 
 was once more seated in his barge, he bade the 
 men at the oars pull their hardest, the sooner to 
 reach the castle. Urged on by him they did not 
 rest until the side of the boat scraped against the 
 landing-stage. Stepping out, John mounted his 
 horse, which was in waiting, and rode up Thames 
 Street to the castle gate. When it had clanged 
 behind him he breathed more freely. He felt secure, 
 knowing that if the barons came in pursuit to take 
 him prisoner, they could not touch him now. 
 
 That night, when the sunset hour had passed, and 
 the curfew bell had rung, John called his courtiers 
 together in the council chamber. There he discussed 
 with them the question as to how far a charter was
 
 THE BARONS' WAR. 79 
 
 binding which he had been forced to sign, such as 
 he had just done at Runnymead. 
 
 The Papal Legate told him to be at ease, since the 
 Pope would cancel it. He also told John that he 
 held his crown at the will, not of the barons, but of 
 the Pope, and his Holiness would see that he 
 continued to be king so long as he did as the Pope 
 desired. John grew more easy in his mind when 
 this was said, and determined to act as though there 
 was no charter to bind him. He stayed but a few 
 days at Windsor, for news came that the mercenaries 
 had landed. He rode at once to meet them, and 
 when he found himself at the head of a great army, 
 he defied the barons. 
 
 Then followed the war. The barons called for the 
 aid of the King of France, offering him the crown of 
 England, since they were determined never more to 
 be subjects of the faithless and detestable king. 
 Prince Louis came over with an army without delay, 
 eager for his father to become sovereign of the land, 
 if war could make him such. Castle after castle 
 threw open its gates to him on his approach, save 
 Dover and Windsor. While the prince stormed 
 Dover he sent the barons and some of his own 
 troops to capture Windsor Castle. 
 
 Then for the first time men discovered how great 
 the strength of the stronghold by the Thames really 
 was. Not all the skill, nor splendid bravery, nor 
 the storming, nor the incessant working of the war 
 engines which hurled huge stones against the walls 
 and gates, could make any impression upon the place. 
 The garrison was a brave one, determined not to
 
 8o THE STOR Y OF RO YAL WINDSOR- 
 
 yield unless overpowered, or starved into surrender. 
 Engelard d'Athies and Andrew de Chanceaux 
 defended the place with sixty knights and their 
 retainers, and kept the great army of the barons at 
 bay. Now and again the gates were suddenly flung 
 open, and the garrison made a desperate sortie. 
 Then followed a tremendous fight, in which the 
 defenders were generally victorious, having done the 
 army outside terrible damage, and strewing the 
 ground with dead. It is said that in two of these 
 sallies the defenders broke down the mighty 
 mangonels the great machines which were used for 
 throwing big stones over the walls into the castle, or 
 against the gates to break them in. It took the 
 men outside many days to mend them. 
 
 The king's object was to hold the armies of his 
 enemies before Dover and Windsor while he marched 
 through the country and destroyed the lands and 
 castles of those barons who were fighting against 
 him. At one time he brought his troops by forced 
 marches within sight of Windsor, and so closely did 
 he approach, that his archers killed some of the 
 barons' soldiers. Finding that the defenders were 
 holding their own in the castle, John drew off his 
 army, although the barons offered him battle. He 
 marched away and began afresh to ruin the lands of 
 his enemies. One shudders at the thought of the 
 abominable cruelties he practised on those who were 
 bold enough to fight against him in defence of the 
 homes of their masters. 
 
 Not all the skill nor all the strength of the 
 besieging army could enable the barons to capture
 
 THE BARONS' WAR. 81 
 
 Windsor Castle. Even when the general in com- 
 mand resolved to starve the garrison into surrender, 
 he found to his amazement that the defenders were 
 able to obtain food by means of Beauclerc's Passage, 
 a tunnel which ran under the walls, and ended at a 
 masked or hidden opening in the forest, or as some 
 have said, near Burnham Manor, which was miles 
 away. 
 
 The siege lasted until John died. Then it ended, 
 for England was rid of the shameless king who was 
 so base that those who knew him said, " Foul as it 
 is, hell itself is defiled by the fouler presence of 
 John."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 WHEN HENRY III. WAS KING. 
 
 THE king who followed John upon the throne was 
 but a boy, for Henry III. was not more than 
 ten years old when his father died, in 1216. The 
 coming of the new sovereign to Windsor meant the 
 beginning of days of great splendour for Windsor 
 Castle, and before the king died, it began, as Sir 
 Richard Holmes says, " to assume the magnificent 
 appearance which has made it one of the finest 
 edifices in the world." 
 
 The castle had been so greatly damaged by the 
 mangonels during the siege, that it was necessary 
 for the young king to take up his abode in another 
 part the lower bailey, and not in the old royal 
 quarters. The repairs were carried out as quickly 
 as possible, and some alterations were made, which 
 made the castle assume very much of its present-day 
 appearance. A chapel was built, probably on the 
 site of Albert Chapel. Following the capable 
 summary of the building operations, as given in Mr. 
 Oldham's little book on Windsor Castle, we find 
 that besides this chapel, the king built a complete
 
 84 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 set of fortifications round the Lower Ward, beginning 
 with a tower, standing probably where the 
 Winchester Tower now is that is the tower near 
 the west end, or town end of the North Terrace. 
 This was connected by fortifications with the 
 Curfew, Garter, and Salisbury Towers, facing High 
 Street, and the top of Thames Street, then round to 
 what we now know as Henry VIII.'s Gateway. 
 The inner space was also surrounded by the 
 buildings where the Military Knights now live, 
 ending at a large tower called Henry III.'s Tower, 
 but known, when first built, as the Stone Tower. 
 
 Such alterations meant the spending of a great 
 sum of money, and often the king had to stop 
 building until he could get more. His fertile brain 
 discovered a way at last for obtaining what he 
 required. Men were growing restless because the 
 king did not always act according to the Great 
 Charter, and the people of London in particular 
 were displaying their anger. The queen, feeling 
 that it was unsafe to stay in London when mobs 
 were beginning to move about the streets, shouting 
 loudly for their rights, endeavoured to escape from 
 her palace and ride down to Windsor. She chose 
 the river for the first part of her journey, but the 
 mob, seeing her in her barge, tried to sink the boat 
 by hurling great stones into it. The royal watermen 
 had to turn the barge, and row for dear life to the 
 Tower of London. Later, she contrived to escape 
 by stealth, and succeeded in reaching Windsor 
 Castle. 
 
 What followed must be considered an act of
 
 WHEN HENRY II f. WAS KING. 85 
 
 shameful trickery on the part of the king, who made 
 it an opportunity for raising funds for his castle 
 building. He had compelled the Jews to lend him 
 money which he never intended to repay, but there 
 came a time when they refused to lend him any 
 more, in spite of the consequences. He also had 
 kept back the payment of the canons and choristers 
 of Windsor ; but even then he had not sufficient 
 to go on with. 
 
 This treatment of the queen by the Londoners 
 gave him an excuse. He took away the charters of 
 London, and in this way deprived the city of its 
 privileges. Then he sent to the Lord Mayor, whose 
 name was Fitz-Thomas, bidding him appear at 
 Windsor, with forty others whom he named men of 
 great wealth and position to witness the humiliation 
 of the capital. Those who were summoned to 
 appear before the king hesitated, knowing that 
 Windsor had many dungeons, and fully aware that 
 the king was in an angry mood. There came, 
 however, a safe-conduct from the king, and an 
 assurance that they should come to no harm. 
 Relying on this, they rode out of London on the 
 5th of October, 1265. To their consternation, when 
 they entered the castle gates, they found themselves 
 prisoners. Instead of being put into comfortable 
 quarters, and treated with the respect due to their 
 station, they were placed in one of the towers, "with 
 small cheer and worse lodging," and the key turned 
 on them. 
 
 After a while the king set thirty-one of them at 
 liberty, but was exceedingly harsh with the others.
 
 86 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 Under the threat of heavy penalties and punish- 
 ment, he compelled them to sign a bond for the 
 payment of 20,000 marks. It was, he said, the only 
 way by which they could go free, and thus the king 
 got the money. Loftie tells us that " from this 
 imprisonment Fitz-Thomas never emerged ; . 
 and whether he died in the Clewer Tower dungeons, 
 or lived out a long imprisonment in the keep on the 
 mound, we have no further information about him." 
 It was a shameful bit of treachery a blot on the 
 record of a sovereign who had proved himself little 
 better than his father, King John. 
 
 Henry's reign was full of trouble for the land. 
 Like his father, he had great quarrels with the 
 barons, and so angry were the latter that they went 
 to war with him to compel him to rule according to 
 the charter John had signed. Yet Henry had taken 
 a solemn oath to carry out all that was in Magna 
 Charta. One writer tells us how the oath was 
 taken at Windsor. 
 
 " Fourteen bishops, with bell, book, and candle, 
 excommunicated all infractors, and at the awful 
 moment when the candles were extinguished, and 
 the words of the curse, ' So may all who incur this 
 judgment be extinguished and stink in hell,' fell 
 upon the startled air, the king exclaimed: 'May 
 God so help me as I shall faithfully maintain these 
 things inviolate as I am a man, as I am a Christian, 
 as knight, and king crowned and anointed.'" 
 
 Solemn as the promise was, the king never 
 regarded it, but treated the Great Charter with the 
 utmost contempt He raised money in the same
 
 WHEN HENRY III. WAS KING. 87 
 
 manner" his father had practised, and which had 
 nearly cost him his throne. 
 
 It was necessary that the king should meet his 
 angry barons, and one day, in the year 1258, he rode 
 from Windsor to Westminster, where he was to hold 
 a council. He was evidently in ignorance of the 
 barons' purpose, and when he entered the hall where 
 the council was to be held, he was startled to see 
 the barons fully armed, and waiting for his coming 
 in stern silence. 
 
 " Am I a prisoner ? " he cried, looking round him ; 
 and it is said that his voice shook with fear. 
 
 " No ! " cried Roger Bigod. " You are our 
 sovereign, but your foreign favourites and your 
 prodigality have brought misery into the realm." 
 
 " What then ? " asked Henry, when the speaker 
 paused. 
 
 " We demand that you confer authority on those 
 who are able and ready to redress the grievances of 
 the people," was Bigod's answer. 
 
 There were loud cries of approval on every hand, 
 and the clanking of great sWords assured the king 
 that a refusal would be madness. Before he had 
 left the hall, he had consented to a commission of 
 twenty-four barons. But the king was obstinate, 
 and the quarrel ended in a civil war. 
 
 Throughout this reign Windsor had some thrilling 
 experiences. Great bodies of armed men came and 
 went, sometimes driven off by the soldiers in the 
 castle. Even when the king was but a child, 
 Windsor was surrounded by an army, for when John 
 died Prince Louis of France was unwilling to leave
 
 88 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 without the crown which was promised to his 
 father. 
 
 Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I., spent many 
 of his boy days in the castle ; " he and his tutors, 
 with his governors and their guards." Possibly it 
 was at Windsor that the prince, who proved so great 
 a warrior, received his first lessons in the art of war. 
 Four of the king's sons were born here, and were 
 trained in the duties which made for knighthood, 
 while Windsor was beginning to be the birthplace 
 of kings. 
 
 At times Prince Edward came down to Windsor 
 with all the display and magnificence of royalty ; but 
 there was one particular day when the people of the 
 town looked on in surprise, for they saw him 
 riding through the streets in haste, followed by a 
 hundred armoured knights, and their esquires, and 
 with them a great guard of foreign soldiers. He was 
 bringing with him a thousand marks in gold, and his 
 mother's costly jewels, which he had taken by force 
 from the Temple in London. Once within the 
 castle, he shouted his orders. Instantly the warders 
 thrust the gates together, dropped the portcullis, and 
 ran up the royal banner. Then he called out the 
 garrison, and with these and the mercenaries he had 
 brought with him, he was ready to hold the castle 
 against any who might attempt its capture. 
 
 But meanwhile the barons had compelled the king 
 to send orders to Windsor, telling the prince to 
 surrender the castle. This was in July, 1263. When 
 the king's messengers came to Windsor, accompanied 
 by a great force of armed men under the command
 
 WHEN HENRY III. WAS KING. 89 
 
 of some of the leading nobles, the prince yielded 
 to his father's orders. The foreign soldiers marched 
 out of the castle, taking with them their horses and 
 their arms, as Edward had demanded. A strong 
 force of barons and their retainers met them on the 
 Castle Hill, and riding with them through Runny- 
 mead, and thence to the coast, did not suffer them to 
 pass out of their sight, night or day, until they were 
 embarked in some ships that were waiting to carry 
 them back to France. 
 
 When the war began, the two armies met at 
 Lewes, but the king was disastrously beaten, and 
 he and Prince Edward were taken prisoners. But 
 later on Edward escaped, gathered an immense 
 army, and defeated the barons at Evesham. It was 
 a crushing blow to the king's enemies, who lost 
 their famous leader in the fight Simon de Mont- 
 fort. 
 
 After the battle the contending parties agreed to 
 peace. The outcome of the war was another solemn 
 promise from Henry to observe Magna Charta. It 
 was also agreed that members should be sent to 
 a parliament that should be held, and these 
 members were to be sent by the boroughs of 
 England. 
 
 When Henry came down to Windsor again, 
 humiliated, in spite of his victory at Evesham, he 
 knew that it would be madness any more to deceive 
 the barons. It would never do to ignore his last 
 oath, or the barons would turn him off his throne. 
 Possibly he regretted often, while he was in Windsor, 
 that when Simon de Montfort had been in the castle
 
 90 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 as a prisoner, he had ever let him go. When the 
 king set de Montfort free, he little thought that the 
 knight whom he presently saw riding out of the castle 
 was some day to be " the rescuer of the oppressed, 
 and the chastiser of the proud," that he was soon to 
 be called by the people the Shield of England, and 
 God's Earthly Champion. 
 
 Henry was not a happy man, although he was 
 dwelling amid all the splendour of the castle ; for 
 he was compelled to remember, day by day, that 
 his barons had shown him that even a king is not 
 above his country's laws, and that in England no 
 man could be allowed to rule if he refused to 
 keep them. 
 
 When he had been taught this lesson, Henry was 
 not honest towards the nobles and the people as he 
 should have been. When he sometimes left the 
 castle and went to London, to live in the palace at 
 Westminster, he placed Windsor in charge of a 
 governor, who did many cruel and shameful acts 
 in the county he was set to guard Adam de 
 Gordon. 
 
 It must not be thought that all was bad even 
 in such unhappy times. It is said that in 
 the intervals of war Berkshire prospered greatly. 
 The chronicler says that " when, in the reign 
 of the third Henry, the great woodland, that 
 had reached from Windsor even to Hungerford, 
 was disafforested," that is to say, made into 
 common land, " more land was brought under 
 cultivation, and numerous villages produced better 
 and more frequent roads."
 
 WHEN HENRY III. WAS KING. 91 
 
 More than this, civilisation and learning became 
 more widely spread, and with the benefits won by 
 the Great Charter the people began to enjoy a 
 liberty they had never known before.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 BAD DAYS FOR WINDSOR. 
 
 WHEN Edward I. came to the throne the 
 town of Windsor was becoming a place of some 
 size and importance. As the residence of kings 
 and queens it naturally had an attraction for those 
 who did business with the sovereign, and felt that 
 the castle was a place with which some trading 
 could be done. 
 
 We have already seen that those who occupied 
 the castle in the days of Henry I. treated 
 the inhabitants of Windsor with great severity and 
 dishonesty, demanding goods without payment, and 
 expecting free service by providing horses for the 
 king. The town was distinguished as a burgus or 
 borough in Henry I.'s time, and one named 
 William de Bochelande was allowed to make what 
 he could out of the taxes of Old and New Windsor, 
 on condition that he paid a certain amount every 
 year to the king. It may be supposed that De 
 Bochelande charged the Windsor inhabitants a 
 fairly high rent, as though he had been the land- 
 lord of the town. De Bochelande and those who
 
 BAD DAYS FOR WINDSOR. 93 
 
 succeeded him in this so-called " farming," found it 
 a very profitable matter. 
 
 Out of the money De Bochelande paid to the 
 king some of the salaries of various officials of the 
 castle were paid. Twenty shillings and tenpence 
 went to the keeper of the king's houses ; thirty 
 shillings and fivepence was paid to each of the 
 chaplains of the king's chapel ; the same amount 
 went to the keeper of the vineyard ; seven shillings 
 to each of the keepers of Windsor. Other sums 
 went to other people, so that the king had not 
 much left ; but it saved his own pocket to that 
 extent, so that it was profitable to him to have 
 a thriving town near the castle walls, for which 
 he did little or .nothing, and gained so much in 
 the way of convenience. 
 
 Some of those who lived in Windsor worked 
 in that portion of the park which came close up to 
 the castle. In later reigns men were employed 
 to look after the vineyards in the little parks, and 
 to make wine from the grapes that grew there. 
 For this they received sixpence a day in 
 Richard III.'s time. This appears to be small pay- 
 ment, but in those days money would buy ten or 
 fifteen times as much as it will to-day. 
 
 Windsor was the centre from whence the whole 
 county of Berkshire was governed, for the cus- 
 todian of Windsor Castle, during the absence of 
 Richard I. in the Holy Land, had charge of the 
 forest, and was Sheriff of the county. It was 
 somewhat strange that often these officers were 
 churchmen of high standing a bishop, and even
 
 94 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 an archbishop. Some time later the Pope interfered, 
 and declared that a churchman's sole duty was 
 to look after his religious duties, and leave such 
 things as the business of the counties to other 
 people. When King John was fighting the barons 
 he made Engelard de Cygony keeper of Windsor 
 Castle, and of the forest, which meant also that 
 Cygony became the Sheriff of Berkshire. John 
 also gave him the charge of the county of Surrey, 
 contrary to the promise the king made in Magna 
 Charta that no foreigner should hold office in 
 England. 
 
 Cygony had not been in office long before the 
 Windsor people complained that he enclosed the 
 common land where they had the right to feed 
 their cattle and pigs, and on their appeal to the 
 king, Henry III., he was told to take the fences 
 down, and allow the people to use the common 
 land as before. 
 
 There was at odd times some sort of considera- 
 tion for the poor who were entertained on certain 
 occasions at the castle ; but generosity was rare, 
 and would never have been displayed but for the 
 fact that those who handled the king's money had 
 to show that they had used some of it in charity. 
 We hear that on certain Saints' days the poor 
 chaplains, clerks, and poor boys were to be fed and 
 clothed to the honour of God. Possibly this was 
 done to celebrate the king's completion of the 
 building operations at the castle, which were all so 
 splendid, and the sovereign wished to make a great 
 holiday of the occasion.
 
 BAD DAYS FOR WINDSOR. 95 
 
 It may well be supposed that when the barons 
 beseiged the castle held by John's soldiers, the 
 town suffered very seriously because it came between 
 the two bodies of fighters. No regard was paid to 
 the safety of the inhabitants, nor to their comfort. 
 If a house stood in the way of the fighters, it 
 had to come down. If a dwelling offered good 
 lodging, no one asked for permission, but came in 
 and took possession, whether the tenant liked it or 
 not. There were no little courtesies in war, and the 
 comfort of law-abiding citizens was never considered. 
 
 Apart from the war, people went to law con- 
 cerning their property in Windsor. We read of 
 various persons disputing as to the ownership of 
 some houses and fields. As for the trade of the 
 town, it was such that the Bailiff of Windsor the 
 man who " farmed " the place and took all the 
 profits he could make was allowed the profits 
 which came from boats which made use of the 
 Thames within a certain distance of Windsor, and 
 which landed goods at the riverside. They were 
 called "tolls and dues." 
 
 Money seems to have come in very many ways 
 as " tolls." No one could pass in a boat under 
 Windsor Bridge, or walk or ride over, without pay- 
 ing " pontage," as it was called. An exception was 
 made in John's days in the case of a man named 
 Fitz Andrew, who was allowed to pass by the town, 
 and over or under the bridge without paying pontage 
 at any time. 
 
 Some of the bailiffs were not the sort of men to 
 err on the side of reasonableness, or keep within
 
 96 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 the borders of their particular districts. One thus 
 sees how very real the grievances of the people 
 were in King John's days, and how they welcomed 
 the fact that Magna Charta had been signed, when, 
 for instance, we read that the constable of Windsor 
 at one time actually claimed service, and customs, 
 and tolls from the people who lived as far away 
 as Bray, and were not in his district at all. 
 
 Eton was a market-town in King John's reign, 
 and the old parish church of that day stood 
 somewhere in King's Stable Street, where, as it 
 is recorded, " until lately a malt house stood." 
 The place fell into such dilapidation from old age, 
 and want of repairs, that none dared to go into 
 it who valued their lives. Consequently the doors 
 were shut, and the worshippers went instead to the 
 College Chapel, while a chapel of ease was being 
 built for the town's benefit. 
 
 Unhappy days were in store for Windsor when 
 Henry III. was king. "A wicked robber," as an 
 old chronicler says, was a favourite of King John. 
 One may judge of this man, whose name was 
 Falkasius, from the fact that he was the friend 
 of such a prince. He was one who drew together 
 the worst men he could find, in the garrisons of 
 Windsor, Oxford, Northampton, and Bedford, and 
 starting one night with this band of " robbers " he 
 rode to St. Albans, captured the place, pillaged it, 
 and carried the men and children to some place 
 that is not mentioned. One may imagine what 
 life in Windsor was like when the town was in 
 charge of such a man.
 
 BAD DAYS FOR WINDSOR. 97 
 
 A man of Falkasius's character, who was given 
 a free hand to do what he pleased, was not slow 
 in cruelty. And on their part, the people, having 
 so much to avenge, so many cruelties to remember, 
 were not slow to show their hate. When their 
 ruler would not keep the law they did not see 
 why they should obey it. Theft was the most 
 common of all crimes, but murders were constantly 
 happening in the neighbourhood of Windsor, as 
 elsewhere. The times were evil everywhere. A 
 man was punished for very trifling offences, while a 
 person like Falkasius could do as he pleased, and 
 no one thought of punishing him. A man was 
 hanged off-hand, when he was caught, whether he 
 had stolen a hen, or had killed someone. The 
 law was terribly harsh, and there is a case on 
 record of a man being outlawed because he stole 
 sixpence. It seems a terrible thing that a man 
 should be deprived of the protection of the law 
 for such a trifling crime. The saying, " As well 
 be hung for a sheep as a lamb," might well have 
 started in those days. The reason given for hang- 
 ing so constantly was, that a dead man cost 
 nothing to keep, whereas a man in prison cost 
 money since he had to be fed.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HOW WINDSOR GAINED HER CHARTER. 
 
 WINDSOR was not a pleasant place to dwell in when 
 Adam de Gordon held an appointment in the castle, 
 and gathering together some ruffians as fierce and 
 lawless as himself, scoured the county of Berkshire 
 as well as Hampshire. He was such a brutal fellow 
 that Prince Edward had to hunt him down, and 
 capture him. Yet Henry III. actually forgave him, 
 and gave him his old post in Windsor! 
 
 Matters greatly improved when Edward I. 
 came to the throne. The king admired the 
 splendour and the beauty of Windsor and its castle, 
 but when he looked into matters more closely, he 
 saw the need for many improvements in the town 
 and in the country round. The old dead trees in 
 the forest were cut down, sold, and carted away. 
 While making his inquiry, he found that he had 
 not only been cheated himself, but the officers of the 
 county had shamefully oppressed the people. This 
 was not at Windsor only, but all over the country. 
 Windsor, Eton, Dorney, Chalvey, Boveney, and 
 Burnham were places that suffered greatly, because 
 of the shameful doings of those who took tolls that
 
 UOW IVJNDSOR GAJNED HER CHARTER. 99 
 
 had already been paid, or had been excused a long 
 time before. 
 
 This question of tolls was always a source of 
 discontent. What held in one county in the matter 
 of unjust charges held in another. The sheriff was 
 often in the habit of receiving money due to the 
 king, but would not give a receipt for it. Con- 
 sequently, one never knew when he might be called 
 on to pay again. Even the coroners, when they went 
 to a town to hold an inquest, extorted money, and 
 " Elias de Egaine, a bailiff, imprisoned a man, Hugh, 
 son of Hugh by name, without cause, and held him 
 in durance until payment of 105 shillings was made." 
 
 This was in the reign of Henry III., and this 
 sort of thing was going on everywhere. Bribery was 
 rife everywhere also. Thorough-going scamps and 
 rogues, who deserved hanging, could escape punish- 
 ment if they were ready to pay sufficient to those 
 who could hang them or set them free, while the 
 poor, and often the innocent, were hung, or flung into 
 the dreadful dungeons and left there to rot, or die 
 of starvation. So much for the good old times! 
 
 The people of Windsor sent their petition to the 
 king. They told him how they had been shamefully 
 robbed of their rights, and King Edward I. when 
 he read the people's petition, granted the town 
 a charter. This was in the fifth year of his reign 
 in 1276. 
 
 Leaving out the preliminaries, the charter ran 
 thus : 
 
 <: Know ye that we have granted for oufselves 
 
 H
 
 ioo THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 and our heirs, that our town of New Windsor 
 from henceforth be a free borough ; and that 
 the good men of our said town, and their heirs 
 and successors, shall be free burgesses, and have 
 a merchants' guild, and shall use the same 
 liberties and free customs in the said borough as 
 other the burgesses of our other boroughs in 
 our kingdom are reasonably accustomed to use, 
 and that they shall be quit of paying toll in all 
 our boroughs, towns, demesnes, and throughout 
 our whole kingdom aforesaid." 
 
 There was much besides, but this may be taken 
 as sufficient to show that Windsor had great liberty 
 granted to her. 
 
 The charter gave the government of the town into 
 the hands of what was known as the Merchant Guild 
 of the Holy Trinity. This made the government of 
 the town, or its Corporation, a religious one. It 
 therefore differed from what could be found in the 
 other old towns. It was, as the name shows, a 
 guild, and a guild was an association of men who 
 joined together for some special purpose. In 
 Windsor the men who were chosen, came together, 
 not merely for trade, but to govern the town. They 
 worshipped together, for the Mayor went to church 
 every Sunday, and asked his comrades of the guild 
 to go with him. They also feasted together, and 
 when any of their number were in trouble, they were 
 supposed to lend him a helping hand. 
 
 As time went on the Corporation lost its religious 
 character, and became a secular body by only
 
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 AN EXTRACT KROM WINDSOR'S CHARTER.
 
 102 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 dealing with business affairs, so that we hear no 
 more of the town being managed by the Guild of 
 the Holy Trinity, but by the Mayor and Corporation 
 chosen by the burgesses every November. Once a 
 month in the present day the Corporation go to the 
 parish church, and the Vicar of Windsor is its 
 chaplain. 
 
 It was a great boon to Windsor to obtain such a 
 charter, although it by no means removed all the 
 grievances. The people still had to pay a yearly 
 rent to the castle through the Constable, but the 
 burdens were greatly lessened, and the burgesses 
 were at liberty to do many things towards improving 
 the town. The king lowered the rental after a time, 
 bringing it down from thirty pounds a year to 
 seventeen. 
 
 When the charter was granted nothing was said 
 about the bridge across the river, joining Eton to 
 Windsor. In was in such a state of dilapidation as 
 to be positively unsafe for horses and carriages, and 
 the burgesses felt that it was not fair that they 
 should have to bear all the expense of keeping it 
 in repair. The king had gone to Carlisle, and 
 messengers went thither, all the way from Windsor, 
 with a petition, asking the king to give them the 
 right to charge pontage for eight years, and thus 
 obtain the required amount of money to put the 
 bridge into thorough repair. The king allowed the 
 pontage, which meant that the Windsor Corporation 
 could levy tolls on those who passed over the bridge, 
 and on boats and barges which went under it, or 
 along the river.
 
 HOW WINDSOR GAINED HER CHARTER. 103 
 
 How old Windsor bridge was no one knew. Some 
 say that there was a bridge across the river at 
 Staines when the Romans were in the land ; but 
 when the Conqueror began to build the castle he 
 had a bridge thrown over the river to join Eton with 
 Windsor, so that people might join the London road 
 which ran from Henley at Slough. There were 
 many bridges over the Thames at various spots in 
 the olden times. We know of one at Reading in 
 Henry III.'s reign. In the fourteenth century 
 Maidenhead had one, and Abingdon one in the 
 century which followed ; but Windsor Bridge was 
 the oldest of them all. 
 
 But to pass on to another matter. 
 
 In Edward I.'s reign, parliaments met with a 
 certain regularity, but when Windsor obtained her 
 charter she had not the right to send members to 
 parliament. The right came later. In 1302 Edward 
 summoned two members from every borough in 
 Oxfordshire and Berkshire, and therefore Windsor 
 was able to send two. The first members chosen 
 were Thomas de Shawe and Henry de Bedeford. 
 
 It is interesting to note that the name of Shaw is 
 in use to-day in connection with Windsor. Shawe, 
 at the time with which we are dealing, meant a small 
 wood or coppice. The locality thus marked soon 
 gave its name to a manor, which in Edward III.'s 
 time passed to the Crown. In Cromwell's days 
 parliament sold it, just as they meant to sell 
 Windsor Castle if they could have found a 
 purchaser. Shaw Manor was, however, bought back 
 by the Prince Consort.
 
 io 4 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 Surnames began to be used in 1301,50 that we 
 have Thomas Of Shaw going to parliament to 
 represent Windsor. This Thomas of the woodside 
 was a member many times, being elected in 1302, 
 in 1306, in 1313, also in 1320, and 1340.* 
 
 As a proof that Windsor was growing in size and 
 in importance, we find that in 1306 two members 
 were not to be sent by every borough as before, 
 but two or one, " according as the borough was 
 greater or less." Windsor was among the " greater," 
 for she continued to send two members. 
 
 * I am indebted to the kindness of Canon Dalton for the information 
 here given. AUTHOR.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE DAYS OF THE EARLY EDWARDS. 
 
 EDWARD I. did not spend much of his time at 
 Windsor after his boyhood. But in those early 
 days of his life, while he was being educated in 
 the castle, his father was very much alarmed for 
 the prince's safety. In 1238 news was brought to 
 Henry that "a learned esquire or rather clearke 
 of the Universitie of Oxenford, bearing some malice 
 toward the king, fained himself mad, and espieng 
 thereby the secret places at his house at Wood- 
 stoke, where he then laie, upon a night by a 
 window he got into the king's bedchamber, and 
 coming to the bedside, he threw off the coverings, 
 and with a dagger strake divers times into a pillow, 
 supposing the king had beene there ; but as God 
 would, that night the king lay in another chamber." 
 It is said that the esquire was taken and torn to 
 pieces by wild horses at Coventry. The king, fearing 
 for the safety of his heir, gave orders for iron bars 
 to be placed to the windows at Windsor Castle, and 
 other royal houses. 
 
 Another exciting incident occurred in 1295, which
 
 io6 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 might have ended in the destruction of the castle. 
 Stow, the chronicler, tells us that in the last day of 
 February in that year, " there sodainely arose such a 
 fire in the castle of Windsor, that many officers of 
 the same house were therewith consumed, and many 
 goodly images, made to beautifie the building, were 
 defaced and deformed." 
 
 If the people of Windsor did not often see the 
 king, they frequently saw the tax-gatherer coming 
 with his armed guard to collect the war-money from 
 Berkshire, as from elsewhere, and also to call on the 
 great men of the county to send their armed 
 retainers to the wars which Edward I. had always in 
 hand in Scotland, Wales, "and parts beyond the 
 seas." These men were not the untrained peasants, 
 but " experts, slingers and bowmen, capable of offen- 
 sive and defensive action, and well-equipped with 
 adequate arms." No better men could be found 
 anywhere in the kingdom than those who were sent 
 to the king's camp from Berkshire. 
 
 Edward came and went, sometimes spending 
 Christmas at Windsor, but nothing stands out 
 historically, as in the case of so many of the 
 kings. 
 
 The story of Windsor gathers round those things 
 which show what progress the town was making. 
 Windsor was no longer an obscure little place of no 
 importance, but one which was taking its own stand 
 without being dependent on the castle for every- 
 thing. 
 
 Nothing of any importance was done at the castle 
 in the next reisrn that of Edward II. The atten-
 
 THE DAYS OF THE EARLY EDWARDS. 107 
 
 tion of that weak and worthless monarch was taken 
 up with other things, so that he had no time for 
 Windsor beyond an occasional visit. Windsor, like 
 many another place, suffered because of the king's 
 readiness to accept any excuse for taking away the 
 homes and lands of those who offended him. He 
 wanted the money, and found a way for obtaining it. 
 Thus he was greatly hated by the inhabitants of 
 Windsor. The king's disastrous experiences in his 
 wars led to the constant calling out of more soldiers 
 to take the place of those who had been slain. 
 Everywhere in Berkshire there were the officers of 
 the king making their claim for this service. When 
 the war was begun in Scotland, five hundred foot 
 were called out from the county, and Windsor had 
 to send its share, but for some reason Reading 
 was excused, and there was much grumbling in 
 consequence. 
 
 The most important event in Windsor's story 
 during that unhappy reign was the birth of a young 
 prince at the castle on Monday, November the 23rd, 
 1312. The newly-born child afterwards became the 
 famous King Edward III., with whose life some of 
 the most telling deeds in the castle's story are 
 associated. 
 
 Dr. Stoughton gives a description of the christen- 
 ing ceremony in the chapel four days after the baby 
 was born. " The uncle of (the queen) and the rest 
 of the French nobles, who were at the Court . 
 . . . were urgent with the king to allow his name 
 to be Louis ; but the English nobles, always averse 
 to foreign (names), insisted that the princely boy
 
 io8 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 should be baptised by none other than the name 
 of Edward. The ceremony was performed by 
 Cardinal Arnold, and the prince had no less than 
 seven godfathers. Rude, no doubt, was the splen- 
 dour of the ceremonial, as high-born dames, noble 
 knights, and mitred priests gathered round the 
 font ; far different from that display of beauty and 
 grandeur which, after the lapse of five long cen- 
 turies, graced the baptism of a regal descendant, 
 who had given him, in addition to the name of 
 Albert, that of Edward, in the spirit of the old 
 nobles at the first Windsor christening." That 
 later child was our present King Edward VII. 
 
 There was some discontent among the people of 
 Berkshire, and possibly jealousy also, because the 
 county jail was at Windsor. Many thought that it 
 should be more central, and in a more populous 
 place ; for since Windsor lay at the extreme end of 
 the county, great trouble and expense were involved 
 because prisoners were taken to Windsor from the 
 distant ends of the county. One grievance stated in 
 the petition to the king, asking for the prison to be 
 placed in a more central spot, was, that the town of 
 Windsor was so small that food could not be 
 bought. One wonders whether no baker lived in 
 the place. 
 
 The further reason given was a strange one : the 
 people of Windsor were generally so poor that they 
 could not spare alms to the wretched prisoners, who 
 consequently died of starvation, whether innocent or 
 guilty. It was clear from that statement that 
 prisoners were not fed at the expense of the county,
 
 THE DAYS OF THE EARLY EDWARDS. 109 
 
 but had to rely on the generosity of those who had 
 pity for the imprisoned who were too poor to buy 
 food. The petitioners suggested that Wallingford 
 had once held the prison, but the king's decision was 
 that Reading should find the jail ; and it lias been 
 there ever since.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 WINDSOR GREAT FOREST. 
 
 THE story of Windsor Great Forest must find a 
 place in the story of the royal borough. Where we 
 now see stretching towards the south and south-west 
 miles upon miles of open country, full of wild beauty, 
 there were days when one who stood on Windsor's 
 mighty mound looked on nothing but forest and a 
 broad and winding river. Gradually in the progress 
 of centuries there was a change. The forests became 
 less and less dense ; great open spaces began to 
 appear, and to-day we see Berkshire a country full of 
 woodland patches, wild heathland, rich corn-growing 
 land, and green meadows. 
 
 It was greatly different in the Middle Ages those 
 days of which we have been reading either from 
 what the old time savage saw, or from what is seen 
 to-day. The Thames, whicli now for a hundred 
 miles of its winding course forms the upper boundary 
 of the county of Berkshire, was wooded all along 
 the valley on either side of its waters. We are told 
 that in the days of the Edwards, " besides the greater 
 extent of forest, . . . the county had a larger
 
 ii2 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 amount of water, and was more subject to (floods) 
 than it is at the present day. In the Vale of the 
 White Horse the termination *ey' to many of the 
 village names, such as Goosey, Hanney, and Charney, 
 points to the time when they stood out as islands, 
 and were dependent on their causeways for 
 communications with the surrounding country ; 
 floods were constant and most destructive to 
 property along the river banks, and frequently 
 rendered intercourse between neighbouring places 
 dangerous, if not impossible. A good deal of land 
 now in the most fertile parts was scarcely worth the 
 trouble of cultivation, until new methods of improv- 
 ing the soil became known." Abingdon was such a 
 place. Yet, as Miss Lodge tells us, " Berkshire was 
 in advance of much of England in its agriculture and 
 general well-being, for although its wealth was chiefly 
 dependent on rural industries alone, it took a high 
 place in comparison with other counties." 
 
 Round about Windsor farming was not possible 
 to any great extent, because of the great stretches of 
 forest. The laws stood in the way of preparing the 
 land for cultivation, for, u nothing might be cut down, 
 not even a man's private wood, withou tspecial 
 license." Berkshire is spoken of as having been in 
 the early days one of the least thickly wooded of the 
 English counties, but the forest was exceptionally 
 thick " in that angle of the county which had 
 Windsor on the east, and Reading on the west, and 
 which, bounded by the Thames on the north, had 
 the confines of Surrey on the south." In the king's 
 lands in the other parts of the royal county there
 
 WINDSOR GREAT FOREST. 113 
 
 was evidently no woodland in the centre, at 
 " Wantage, Spresholt, Charlton, and Betterton ; 
 whilst at Faringdon in the north-west of the county, 
 and at Little Coxwell, it is stated that there was 
 only a sufficiency of wood, mere brushwood, to serve 
 for fencing purposes." 
 
 When Domesday Book was prepared, William the 
 Conqueror was not satisfied with the forest's size, 
 
 EQUESTRIAN STATUE OK GEORGE III. IN THE GREAT FOREST, COM- 
 MONLY-KNOWN AS "THE COPPER HOKSE." 
 
 and gave orders for it to be made very much larger. 
 The houses were destroyed, although it meant that 
 men became homeless, and lost their all the very 
 lands on which the pigs fed, or whatever else the 
 people kept so that the king might not have his
 
 ii4 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 hunting hindered. According to his commands, 
 some of Buckinghamshire was made into forest, a 
 part of Middlesex, some of Oxfordshire, and in 
 Surrey as much land was covered with woodland as 
 in Berkshire, as well as the greater part of Hamp- 
 shire. Windsor Great Forest, therefore, was of 
 tremendous size when the Normans ruled the land, 
 the beasts therein receiving more care than men, 
 women, or children. 
 
 Gradually, however, the forest was thinned out. 
 Some of the abbots and lords of the various manors 
 received permission to clear a space, and use the 
 timber for building. Sometimes wood was carried 
 down the river for certain work in London, such as 
 the quay which was built on the Thames side in 
 1222. Gifts also came from the king at times : "six 
 oaks for fuel to Master Simon de Menveys, the 
 king's surgeon," two oaks to another, and the trunk 
 of an ash to the king's gardener at Windsor. Thirty 
 oaks were given to the Constable of the Tower of 
 London in 1276, to burn lime for the works of the 
 Tower, and six to the nurse of the king's daughter. 
 The carefulness displayed in making the- gifts shows 
 how loth -the kings were to thin down the forest; 
 but we must remember that wood was valuable, and 
 the sovereign looked to the sale of the forest trees for 
 a considerable part of his income. 
 
 In time certain parts were fenced in, and the trees 
 removed, so that the land which was given away to 
 certain persons, or sold, might be cultivated. Some- 
 times these enclosures were of great extent. Again 
 and again the kings enclosed great spaces, and made
 
 WINDSOR GREAT FOREST. 115 
 
 them into parks. Edward IV. took in two hundred 
 acres close to New Windsor, but made compensation 
 tothe inhabitants of the town, by granting them certain 
 privileges. This was only just, for by the making of 
 the enclosure the people were the losers, since they 
 lost the right to collect firewood. Abbots, priors, 
 prioresses, the Chapters of Windsor and Salisbury, 
 the Provost and College of Eton, and others, in Queen 
 Elizabeta's days, had certain forest rights, and had to 
 be thought of when enclosures were made, or trees were 
 cut down. Some had claims on the venison ; some 
 possessed rights for feeding pigs ; others had hunting 
 rights, and so on, so that no great general order 
 could be given to clear whole districts without first 
 bringing the matter before the justices of the forest. 
 
 In Windsor Forest there were various woods which 
 did not belong to the king. They had become 
 private property by gifts of purchase, or in conse- 
 quence of special services rendered for which the 
 stretch of woodland was payment. Yet there were 
 certain regulations, "such as free ingress and egress 
 of the king's game." Even in this private property 
 in the forest the owners could not do as they pleased. 
 Dr. Cox tells us that they could not fell timber, or 
 clear away undergrowth, or build houses or sheds, or 
 erect forges, or burn charcoal, or do anything that 
 might alarm or damage the deer without a special 
 -license from the king. 
 
 In James I.'s time, Windsor Forest, in spite of the 
 constant encroachments upon it, was of great extent, 
 for the circuit was 77^ miles, not counting in what 
 was in Buckinghamshire. There were certain so- 
 
 I
 
 u6 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 called " walks " or portions of the forest which 
 came under the management of the keepers and the 
 "walks" in Berkshire were " Egham (partly in 
 Surrey), Cranbourne and New Lodge comprising the 
 parts lying nearest to Windsor Castle; Swinley, 
 Warfield, Easthampstead, Sandhurst, Bearwood, and 
 Bigshot, lying on the south-west of Windsor ; and the 
 large district extending northwards, from Woking- 
 ham to the Thames, called Binfield Walk." 
 
 At various times, in the Stuart days, great districts 
 were thickly sown with acorns. In Queen Elizabeth's 
 days thirteen acres had been sown in Cranbourne 
 Walk, and after forty-five years there was "a wood 
 of some thousands of tall young oaks, bearing acorns, 
 and giving shelter to cattle, and likely to prove as 
 good timber as any in the kingdom. There was 
 some trouble in 1640, because the deer multiplied so 
 greatly that the Grand Jury of Berkshire declared 
 that " if they go on so for a few years more," they 
 "will neither leave room nor food for any other 
 creature in the forest." 
 
 When Charles was quarrelling with his parliament, 
 some of the people who lived in or near the forest 
 became unruly, killing the deer, poaching, breaking 
 down the fences, and doing a great amount of 
 damage to the trees. For this many were clapped 
 into prison. 
 
 During the days of the Commonwealth, when 
 Admiral Blake was winning his great naval victories, 
 and asking for new warships with which to fight the 
 Dutch, the Government cut down an immense 
 number of oak-trees for the building of our navy.
 
 s 
 s S 

 
 n8 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 When Charles II. came to Windsor after the 
 Restoration, he was dismayed at what he saw, for the 
 deer had disappeared so completely, that some of his 
 noblemen and gentlemen made him a present of 
 three hundred deer with which to re-stock the forests 
 and royal parks. Gradually these increased, until in 
 1731 there was thirteen hundred deer in Windsor 
 Forest; but by 1806 the numbers had gone down 
 again, and there were only 318 deer in it. 
 
 The changes in the forest in the course of centuries 
 were very great. There were perpetual clearances, 
 and at the commencement of the nineteenth century, 
 " the total open forest land, apart from the enclosed 
 property of the Crown (5,400 acres), and of private 
 individuals (29,000), was about 25,000 acres." 
 
 In 1817, "the Crown secured 6,665 acres in 
 compensation for a variety of rights, a considerable 
 portion of which (1454 acres) was added to the Great 
 Park." The Home Park of Windsor, as we know it 
 now, close by the castle, contains about four hundred 
 acres, and is four miles in circumference. It has in 
 it many magnificent oaks, and avenues of great elms, 
 especially that splendid avenue known as the Long 
 Walk. The celebrated Herne's oak is no longer 
 standing, for it fell on the 3ist of August, 1863. 
 " This venerable tree," we read, " is believed to have 
 attained to the great age of 650 years ; the site is 
 now marked by a youthful successor, which was 
 planted by Queen Victoria on September I2th, 
 1863." 
 
 Of late years the value of forest land has become 
 more and more appreciated, so that instead of
 
 WINDSOR GREAT FOREST. 119 
 
 destruction going on, unheeded, steps are being 
 taken to encourage the growth of woodland in 
 England. 
 
 The Great Park in Windsor is receiving more and 
 more care, and while it is now fourteen miles round 
 and contains i,8oo acres, it is jealously guarded 
 against any diminution either in size or beauty.
 
 CHAPTER xvi. 
 
 WHEN EDWARD III. WAS KING. 
 
 THE reign of Edward III. added more splendour 
 and importance to Windsor than that of any of the 
 preceding monarchs. Sir Richard Holmes says that 
 with the advent of Edward III. to the throne, the 
 real history of Windsor may be said to begin. 
 "Born in the castle on November I3th, 1312, and 
 therefore styled ' of Windsor,' he made it always his 
 favourite home, and the most stately and illustrious 
 of all the palaces of Europe." Sir Richard adds, 
 later on, that Edward's proudest monument is the 
 Castle of Windsor, " which, had it not been for the 
 institution of the Most Noble Order of the Garter by 
 him, and the endowments left for its service, might 
 long ago have shared the fate of so many of the 
 great feudal fortresses of the land." 
 
 Undoubtedly much of the added splendour was 
 due to the fact that the nobles were now bent on 
 possessing homes even more than mere strongholds. 
 Comfort and grandeur were desired, so that the 
 feudal castles throughout England were gradually 
 being changed into palaces, with all the strength of
 
 WHEN EDWARD III. WAS KING. 121 
 
 the old-time fortresses. War and misrule had so 
 diminished under Edward's strong government, that 
 castles were not necessary as places of defence, as in 
 the days gone by ; hence Windsor's share in this 
 increasing idea of grandeur. As Mr. Lambourn 
 says : " A house had merely been a place for eating 
 and sleeping. Now people had new ideas, new 
 interests, and new needs. To men like Chaucer and 
 Langland, for instance, private rooms in which to 
 think and write were a necessity." One can under- 
 stand, therefore, that " the new Windsor Castle was 
 built to be a house in the modern sense of the word. 
 It began to be a palace as well as a fortress." 
 Edward made it so beautiful that he chose it as his 
 home, the most palatial residence that he had. 
 
 Here, in times of peace, between the devastating 
 wars in France, Edward held great tournaments, 
 such as were only possible in what became the age 
 of chivalry, to celebrate the glorious victories of 
 Crecy and Poitiers. Thus sprang up other comforts 
 and other splendours elsewhere, and Berkshire was 
 singularly benefitted in this regard. 
 
 To tell of all that happened in Windsor in this 
 reign of the additions made to the castle, and of 
 events which could not but make the place famous 
 is not possible. One can only select a few of the 
 most important doings of an illustrious reign with 
 which Windsor is closely associated. 
 
 To begin with, the king told the people of the 
 town that their liberties should not be taken from 
 them. In 1328 he confirmed the charter and the 
 privileges his predecessors had granted, and secured
 
 122 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 to them pontage. This was no small matter now 
 that the Thames was becoming a great highway for 
 trade as well as pleasure. 
 
 The amount of time and money and proud care 
 expended on the castle itself was very great. 
 William of Wykeham was entrusted by the king 
 to carry out the changes he desired, and those who 
 assisted this clever architect were given the power 
 to press all manner of workmen into the work, 
 very much, one would think, in the spirit of the 
 later day " Press gangs." The instructions given 
 were these : The Sheriffs were to see that no work- 
 men went away from Windsor without permission, 
 or they would be fined ^,100. But in spite of the 
 care the Sheriffs took, the men stole away without 
 being seen. The king, therefore, issued a proclama- 
 tion that when these men were found they should 
 be put into Newgate Prison, while anyone who 
 dared to employ them should forfeit all the goods 
 that he possessed. These were harsh regulations, 
 and did not help to make some to have any very 
 kind feelings towards the castle. 
 
 While these buildings were going on, Edward 
 pulled down the old chapel, and put up a much 
 more handsome and spacious one ; but it was so 
 badly built that it was so unsafe in Edward IV.'s 
 time, that it had to come down again. 
 
 For years the rebuilding of the castle proceeded, 
 but it was said to be complete in 1369. The finish- 
 ing stroke would seem to have been the carving of 
 the inscription, " Hoc fecit Wykeham," on Win- 
 chester Tower, and which can be seen to-day.
 
 i2 4 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR, 
 
 Concerning this a story is told which runs as 
 follows : 
 
 "The courtiers represented to the king that the 
 architect had (taken) to himself all the glory of the 
 palace ; but when the king, greatly incensed, charged 
 Wykeham with the crime, he, not with sorrowful 
 and affrighted countenance, but with great com- 
 posure and good humour, replied that the man 
 was either ignorant of grammar, or a malicious 
 calumniator, who founded a criminal charge upon a 
 mere inversion of grammatical cases. ' Neither, 
 serene prince,' he added, ' did I make this castle, but 
 this castle made me all I am ; that is, it has placed 
 me in your Majesty's favour, and raised me from a 
 humble condition to the highest fortune.' " 
 
 Unfortunately the progress of Windsor was 
 retarded by the coming of that awful pestilence to 
 which the name was given of the Black Death, 
 because of the dark blotches on the skin of the 
 victims. The castle was being added to day by 
 day, and the town outside its walls was prospering 
 because of the privileges it enjoyed. Windsor Castle 
 must have looked very picturesque at the time, and 
 the town also ; for we are told that while the town 
 was by no means thickly populated, the dwellings of 
 the inhabitants were in many instances separated 
 from each other by neat little gardens, blooming 
 with roses, and fragrant with honeysuckles. Men 
 and women had begun to hope that better days 
 \vould come after some very hard experiences, but 
 they were suddenly brought face to face with the 
 most terrible plague Berkshire, and indeed all
 
 WHEN EDWARD II L WAS KING. 125 
 
 England, had ever known. It came just when 
 the people of the county were feeling the stress 
 of hard times. There had been a particularly bad 
 winter. A disease had broken out among the 
 sheep, and they died in great numbers, while, to 
 make matters worse, there had been a failure in 
 the corn crops. It is said that all along the 
 Thames valley complaints had been made of 
 this, and widespread poverty came in consequence. 
 To make the trouble greater the Black Death 
 came. 
 
 In other times the country had been swept by 
 blight, by plague, by famine, and other calamities, 
 but never by anything so terrible as this. To touch 
 a plague-stricken one, or even to inhale the breath, 
 was to sicken and die in three or four days. The 
 Black Death came sweeping through Europe from 
 Asia, "in the track of the caravans that brought the 
 produce of the East." It reached Cyprus in 1347. 
 In 1348 it was ravaging England. Old Caxton, the 
 famous printer, said that in those days " Death was 
 without sorrow, weddings without friendship, flying 
 without succour ; scarcely was there left living folk 
 to bury honestly them that were dead." Of the 
 citizens of London, a small city then, no less than 
 100,000 died, and the place was a vast charnel- 
 house, a city that seemed to have nothing in it but 
 the dead ; while as for Norwich, 60,000 died, and 
 Bristol had in it more dead than living. It is 
 estimated that throughout Europe 25,000,000 were 
 carried off by the pestilence. 
 
 It struck down the rich as freely as the poor, for a
 
 1 2 6 THE STORY OF ROYAL\ WINDSOR. 
 
 daughter of the king, three Archbishops of Canter- 
 bury, nobles, abbots, priors, and yeomen, as well as 
 the poorest of the poor, died, Berkshire suffered 
 terribly ; so much so that the castle-building at 
 Windsor was stopped because so many of the 
 workmen were among the dead. Other workmen 
 could not be obtained owing to the scarcity of 
 labour. Men walked about in deadly fear, and 
 people were saying among themselves that the 
 Black Death was the herald of the judgment, 
 because of the wickedness of men. 
 
 Because of the scarcity of labour, and because 
 such as were not stricken by the plague were too 
 full of trouble to work, " Harvests rotted in the 
 ground ; the fields were left unploughed ; and sheep 
 and cattle were left untended " ; and, naturally, 
 famine followed. When work began again the 
 labourers refused to work unless they received big 
 wages, and they fixed their prices so high that the 
 Government had to interfere, and pass " The Statute 
 of Labourers," fixing the wages for the various 
 trades. Throughout Berkshire, because of these 
 experiences, there was the sight of dilapidation as 
 everywhere else. " Towns and villages fell into 
 decay. Houses, mills, and cottages were tenantless. 
 A murrain broke out among the cattle and sheep, 
 which died by thousands." Every trade, especially 
 the woollen, seems to have been paralyzed, and the 
 whole nation appeared to be face to face with ruin. 
 Windsor had its full share of suffering in this never- 
 to-be-forgotten time of trouble.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 WINDSOR'S PATRON SAINT. 
 
 IN the feudal days when each lord, at the call of the 
 king, brought out his armed retainers to join the 
 army, and take their part in the wars, that lord had 
 his own war-cry. This held throughout all Christen- 
 dom. Each nation had its own battle-word. The 
 Highlanders, as far back as we can go in their 
 history, shouted, when they rushed into battle, their 
 ringing cry, " Claymore ! " So whenever the French 
 moved to the attack, their leader raised the battle- 
 cry, " Mount joye, St. Dennis !" and at that word the 
 soldiers took it up with a mighty shout, and rushed 
 upon the foe. 
 
 But strange to say, England had so many battle- 
 cries that no one among them all roused the soldiers 
 to the same enthusiasm as the cry of their particular 
 lord under whose banner they were serving. 
 
 Edward III., however, when he went to war with 
 France, led off with a war-cry. His shout went 
 ringing through the field when the English stood 
 waiting at Crecy 30,000 of them faced by 100,000 
 of the very flower of the French army. 
 
 " St. George for England ! " cried the king.
 
 128 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 " St. George for England ! " ran the shouts all 
 down the English ranks, and from that day onward 
 it became the war-cry of our soldiers. 
 
 The name " St. George " had been popular in the 
 days of Richard I., when he was taking his part in 
 the Crusade, but not until Edward faced the French 
 at Crecy did St. George become the patron saint of 
 England. 
 
 Edward had endeavoured for a long time to fix 
 upon a patron saint for England, one that would be 
 accepted by men of all ranks, the high and the low, 
 but to every proposal he made someone took excep- 
 tion. At last he fixed upon St. George. When 
 the first Richard was fighting Sala.din in the Holy 
 Land he adopted the cry of St. George. It had 
 been used by one of his most famous knights, and 
 all through his marvellous career as a soldier of the 
 Cross he adopted it. When Edward used it at 
 Crecy also, the chivalry of France was beaten, and 
 broken, and fled away, leaving 30,000 Frenchmen 
 dead upon the awful field. The king " returned to 
 Windsor from his conquests, burning with devotion 
 to St. George, henceforth to be his patron saint, his 
 banner, and his cry." 
 
 At once men began to rehearse the story of the 
 famous saint, who was adopted with enthusiasm by 
 all sorts and conditions in those warlike days. The 
 story was told in castle and in mansion, in city and 
 country, was known by the man in the field as well 
 as by the man in the workshop, and also by the king 
 and all his gentlemen. As it was told among the 
 people it took this form :
 
 WINDSOR'S PATRON SAINT. 129 
 
 " Once upon a time (for so we will begin it) St. 
 George of Cappadocia came to the country of Lybia, 
 and to the city of Sisena (a city, as Don Quixote 
 said of his kingdom errant, that is not to be found in 
 all the maps). Near to this town was a lake as big 
 as any sea, God bless us, and in that lake a deadly 
 dragon, which with his breath did poison all the 
 country all around him, and therefore the poor 
 people were compelled, God help 'em, to give him 
 every day a couple of sheep to keep him quiet. 
 
 " At last, when all their sheep were spent, alas ! 
 poor people, they were compelled to give him every 
 day one sheep, and one man or one woman with it 
 to make up the number. And then, when almost 
 all their sons and daughters had been eaten, at 
 length the cruel and unlucky lot fell upon the king's 
 daughter, her father's only child, and her mother's 
 blessing. It was a sorry house, I warrant you, but 
 who could help it ? The poor lady was drawn forth 
 into the fields, and was about to be stripped of all 
 her gay attire and bound under a stake, and ready 
 for the monster that was to eat her." 
 
 To carry on the story apart from what the old 
 writers say, since they make it much too long to 
 quote it all, the maiden's only hope of life was that 
 some brave knight should be found who should have 
 courage sufficient to meet the dragon, and kill him. 
 St. George, the English knight, heard of this, and 
 heard, too, of the great reward the king offered to the 
 champion. He was to win the hand of the princess, 
 and succeed to the crown of Egypt when the 
 monarch died. St. George vowed that he would
 
 1 30 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 either save the king's daughter or lose his own life in 
 so glorious an enterprise. 
 
 That night he slept in the hermitage of the old man 
 who told him of this strange beast ; but rising at 
 sunrise, he buckled on his armour, and harnessed his 
 steed with the richest harness, and guided by the 
 hermit, he rode up the valley towards the spot 
 where the maiden was that morning to be chained. 
 He saw her crossing the plain towards the lake, 
 but calling to those who were with her to halt, he 
 entreated her to return to her father's palace, since 
 he had come to slay the dragon. 
 
 Like the bold and daring hero that he was, the 
 noble knight entered the valley where the monster 
 had his abode. At the sight of the champion in 
 shining armour, the dragon sent forth a sound more 
 terrible than thunder. 
 
 St. George's heart stood still for a moment when 
 he saw the mighty beast he had to fight, for he 
 was fearful to behold. From his shoulders to his 
 tail his length was fifty feet. The glittering scales 
 upon his body were as bright as burnished silver, 
 but harder than brass. His belly was of the colour 
 of gold. 
 
 Coming from his hideous den, he so fearfully 
 assailed the gallant champion with his fearful wings, 
 that at the first shock of the encounter the knight 
 was almost struck out of his saddle. But quickly 
 recovering himself, he drove his splendid steed 
 onward, and thrust at the monster with his 
 spear. To his dismay it shivered in a thousand 
 pieces. Again and again the fight was renewed.
 
 WINDSOR'S PATRON SAINT. 131 
 
 The gallant horse was beaten to the ground, and 
 lay there senseless, while St. George was so sorely 
 bruised that he stepped back to avoid the fatal 
 blow of the monster's wings. Thus he came under 
 the shelter of an orange-tree which had that rare 
 virtue in it that no venomous creature dared to 
 come within the compass of its branches. Here 
 the valiant knight rested himself till he had 
 recovered his former strength ; but he no sooner 
 felt his spirits revive, than with an eager courage he 
 smote the burning dragon under his yellow burnished 
 belly with his trusty sword Ascalon. 
 
 The fearful fight went on until, undaunted, the 
 knight smote the dragon under the wing, where it 
 was tender, and without scale. He drove in his 
 sword, Ascalon, up to the hilt, and with an awful 
 roar of pain the monster rolled over dead. Cutting 
 off the dragon's head, the champion rode out of the 
 valley in triumph. 
 
 Such is the story of the deed which won the 
 English champion his immortal fame. 
 
 As we have seen, St. George was not chosen to be 
 the patron saint of England until the battle of Crecy 
 had been fought and won. According to tradition, 
 he was held in honour alike by King Arthur and 
 the Britons, and the Saxons also ; but he never held 
 the supremacy over the other saints, of which there 
 were so many. 
 
 When Richard I. landed in Palestine, he found 
 that the Crusaders from England wen: into battle 
 with the cry of '' St. George ! " Someone told the 
 lion-hearted king that Godfrey of Boulogne had seen 
 
 K
 
 1 32 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 the saint. " He was an armed and mounted knight, 
 clothed in white mail, mounted on a white horse, 
 and wearing a white shirt on which was stamped a 
 red cross. ... So habited and mounted, he had 
 led the Christian hosts to battle ; dashing into the 
 Moslem ranks, swathing them down like grass, and 
 scattering them to the wind like chaff. From 
 Antioch the white knight with the blood-red cross 
 had led his followers to Jerusalem." 
 
 From that day, when the strange story spread 
 among the Crusaders, St. George was worshipped by 
 them, and in " many an after field brave men had 
 donned his armour, and displayed his flag." 
 
 When Richard came back to England, having 
 fought under the banner of St. George, men heard 
 the story, and observed the saint's day as a national 
 holiday. Even then, however, he did not rise to the 
 dignity of England's patron saint, but shared the 
 honour with so many others. 
 
 But at Crecy he was chosen once for all. Camden 
 says : " George hath been a name of special respect 
 in England since the victorious king, Edward III., 
 chose St. George for his patron, and the English in 
 all encounters and battles have used the name 
 of St. George in their cries, as the French did 
 Mount joy e St. Dennis'' 
 
 When Edward came back to England and 
 travelled down to Windsor, and established there 
 the Noble Order of the Garter, the Order was 
 dedicated to St. George. Edward also chose that 
 champion to be the saint and patron of his soldiery, 
 caused him to be painted on a noble horse, holding a
 
 W/NDSOR'S PATRON SAINT. .33 
 
 white shield with a red cross on it, and to each of his 
 soldiers a white coat or cassock with two red crosses, 
 " on each side of them one, to wear upon their 
 armour." 
 
 From that day St. George was not the saint of 
 men in general throughout all Europe, but became 
 exclusively the patron saint in Edward's realm. The 
 battle-cry from that day onward was always the 
 same: " Forward for St. George and Merry England!" 
 The straight-barred crimson cross upon our Union 
 'Jack is the cross of St. George. 
 
 One well-known writer says from that day forth 
 the worship of St. George had grown with English 
 growth, and spread with English enterprise. . . . 
 " England has established him throughout the earth. 
 On every ocean we have his flag, on every island we 
 have reared his fame. But we have kept him as a 
 naval not as a Crusading hero. In Windsor we have 
 given a permanent presence to St. George. The 
 sovereign comes and goes, St. George remains. On 
 Windsor hill St. George is king."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER. 
 
 THE splendour of Edward's court in those days 
 when St. George became the patron saint of 
 England was greater than anything England had 
 yet seen, and the whole world turned its gaze 
 upon the place where the king dwelt who was at 
 that time in the fulness of his glory. Tilts and 
 tournaments were often exhibited, bringing to 
 Windsor the greatest knights of Europe. 
 
 With so many famous warriors about him, it 
 became Edward's great ambition to found a splen- 
 did order of chivalry which should excel that of 
 every other order the world had ever known for 
 splendour. The Order was to be that of The 
 Garter, and St. George was to be the patron. 
 
 If the story that is told is true, then Edward 
 was not the first to think of the garter as the 
 badge of honour. The old historian tells us that 
 when Richard I. warred against the Saracens, and 
 was weary of the delay caused by the obstinate 
 resistance of one of the garrisons, St. George 
 appeared to the lion-hearted monarch. Whether 
 St. George made the suggestion one cannot tell.
 
 ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL, SHOWING PART OF THE CEREMONY OK A\ 
 INSTALLATION OF THE KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER.
 
 136 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 But on the following day Richard placed on the 
 legs of his choicest knights a garter of leather, 
 whereby, being so distinguished, and put in mind 
 of future glory, promised to them, they fought so 
 valorously, and led their men with such resolution 
 that the beleaguered city fell, and the soldiers of 
 the Cross were free to march on towards Jerusalem. 
 
 Such a story as that, however, does not spoil that 
 other which is told as to the foundation of the 
 Order of the Garter, " an Order of such excellency 
 that the mightiest princes of Christendom have 
 reputed it among their greatest honours to be chosen 
 and admitted to it." 
 
 There are several stories as to its institution, but 
 no one can say which is the correct one. The legend, 
 as told by Stow is, that in 1350, Joan, the beautiful 
 Countess of Salisbury, while dancing with the king, 
 in Windsor Castle, dropped her jewelled garter, and 
 the king bent down to pick it up. Some smiled, but 
 Edward seeing this, cried, so that all who were in 
 the chamber heard : " Honi soil qui Dial y pense " 
 " Evil to him who evil thinks." It was asserted by 
 some that the king meant by his words that shame 
 and defiance should be upon him who should think 
 amiss of the just enterprise he had undertaken for 
 the recovery of his right to the throne of France. 
 
 These words became the motto of the Order of 
 the Garter. In those days everything had its motto 
 and device, and Edward in particular was so fond of 
 them that his plate, bed, household furniture, shield, 
 and even the harness of his horses were covered with 
 emblems which it would now be vain to think to
 
 THE NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER. 137 
 
 trace the meanings of. On a doublet of the king, 
 for instance, was traced the motto, " It is as it is ; " 
 but there was one wrought on the surcoat and shield 
 he used at tournaments which is more intelligible : 
 
 " Hay, hay, the wythe swan, 
 By God's soul, I am the man ! " 
 
 Some say that the story of the Countess's garter 
 is so much idle romance, " too trifling a foundation 
 for so great a building, 1 ' and they tell another story 
 which is to this effect that the king, following the 
 queen to her apartments, espied a blue garter lying 
 on the floor. Attendant after attendant disregarded 
 it as they went, as if disdaining to stoop to such a 
 trifle. The king knew it for the queen's, and when 
 it was handed to him at his desire, he said to those 
 who were about, " You make but small account of 
 this garter, but within a few months I will cause the 
 best of you all to reverence it." 
 
 The story of Richard I. and the garter in the 
 Holy Land has just been told, but there is a fourth 
 which says that Edward III., while engaged in his 
 wars with France, resolved to restore King Arthur's 
 Round Table. His plan was "to invite the gallant 
 spirits from abroad, and endear them to himself; and 
 considering no place more suitable than Windsor, he 
 issued letters of protection for the safe going and 
 returning of foreign knights, to try their valour at 
 the solemn jousts to be held there on Monday 
 after the Feast of St. Hilary which happened on 
 January the I9th" 1345.
 
 , 3 8 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 The story goes on to say that the king provided a 
 great supper to begin the solemnity, and then 
 ordained this festival to be held annually at Whitsun- 
 tide. But accommodation was needed. Consequently 
 the great Round Tower was reconstructed on a more 
 massive scale, so as to afford a meeting-place for the 
 newly established Order of the Knights of the 
 Garter. Edward selected this spot because popular 
 tradition ran to the effect that it was on the summit 
 of the circular mound that King Arthur used to be 
 surrounded by the Knights of the Round Table. In 
 this Round Tower he placed a table of two hundred 
 feet diameter, where the knights should have their 
 entertainment of diet at the king's expense to 
 the extent of not less than a hundred pounds a 
 week. 
 
 In this connection the legend of the dropped 
 garter comes in. During these great assemblies the 
 days were spent in all kinds of jousts and tourna- 
 ments, and the nights witnessed many dances. The 
 garter fell, the king saw it, and saw the smiles of 
 those who were near. He gave the answer to the 
 smiles by adopting the garter as the chief ensign, 
 and the re-naming of the new Order. It was hence- 
 forth the Order of the Garter, and not of the Round 
 Table. 
 
 Froissart says that in connection with the founda- 
 tion of this Order, Edward founded a chapel at 
 Windsor in honour of St. George, and appointed 
 canons there to serve God, with a handsome endow- 
 ment. He then issued his proclamation for tin's 
 feast by his heralds, whom he sent to France, Scot-
 
 THE NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER. 139 
 
 land, Burgundy, Hainault, Flanders, Brabant, and 
 the Empire of Germany, and offered to all the 
 knights and squires that might come to this cere- 
 mony passports to last for fifteen days after it was 
 over. The celebration of the Order was fixed for 
 St. George's Day next ensuing, to be held at 
 Windsor, and the queen was to be present, accom- 
 panied by three hundred ladies and damsels, all of 
 high birth, and richly dressed in similar robes. 
 
 It is said that for several hundred years after the 
 institution of the Order the ladies of the knights 
 continued to attend the chapters in their robes. 
 They were called " Lady Companions," and wore 
 the garter, with the motto, on their left arms. 
 
 There was a purpose in the mind of the warlike 
 king when he established this Order. It was his 
 desire "to adorn martial prowess with honour, rewards, 
 and splendour ; to increase virtue and valour in the 
 hearts of his nobles, that so true worth, after long 
 and hazardous exploits, should not be deprived of 
 that glory." He also desired to spur the youth of 
 those days of chivalry to greater virtue, as virtue 
 was counted in those days. 
 
 Later on the Garter became a badge of unity and 
 concord. By the symbols of the Garter the knights 
 were reminded not to leave the pursuit of whatsoever 
 they took in hand, nor to attempt anything that was 
 contrary to the laws of the Order. Another obliga- 
 tion was, neither to frustrate the rights of peace and 
 friendship, nor to do what was contrary to the law of 
 arms, nor to proceed in anything farther than true 
 friendship would permit.
 
 140 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 In the binding of the leg there was this exhorta- 
 tion, that the knights should not, by running away 
 from battle betray valour and renown. Because 
 there should be no jealousies, and no suggestions of 
 superiority among men of such fame, it was com- 
 manded that the knights-companions' robes should 
 be all alike, both for materials and fashion, intimating 
 that thereby there should be brotherly affection 
 among them. The great Collar of the Order was 
 made of equal weight, and of an exact number of 
 knots and links, in token of the bond of faith, peace, 
 and friendship to be always observed, and never 
 broken. 
 
 There were but twenty-six members at first, the 
 king being the head. In 1786 the number was 
 raised to thirty-two. In 1831 the Order became 
 limited by an Act of Parliament to the sovereign 
 and twenty-five knights-companions, besides any of 
 the descendants of George I. The Prince of Wales 
 is always a knight ; but there are now the sover- 
 eign, the Prince of Wales, and forty-eight knights 
 fifty in all, some of whom are sovereigns of 
 other countries, and rank' as extra knights. The 
 restriction on the membership of the Order is, that 
 no knight must be below the rank of earl. 
 
 The ceremony of installation is, and was, a gor- 
 geous one. Nothing could be more splendid, and 
 nothing more impressive. The king possesses the 
 right to elect " whom he conceives to be the most 
 likely to contribute to the honour of the Order, and 
 prove most serviceable to himself, or most useful to 
 his crown and kingdom." When the newly-elected
 
 THE NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER. 141 
 
 knight enters the Chapter he does obeisance to the 
 sovereign for the honour conferred. He then receives 
 the salutations of the knights. One of the knights 
 
 o o 
 
 named by the sovereign, and assisted by Garter, who 
 is the great official of the Order, buckles the garter 
 
 o o 
 
 on the knight-elect's left leg, the knight-elect at the 
 time kneeling on his right knee. Meanwhile the 
 Chancellor reads the following words : 
 
 " To the honour of God Omnipotent, and in 
 memorial of the blessed martyr, St. George, tie 
 about thy leg for thy renown this noble Garter ; wear 
 it as the symbol of the most illustrious Order, never 
 to be forgotten nor laid aside, that thereby thou 
 mayst be admonished to be courageous, and having 
 undertaken a just war, into which only thou shalt 
 be engaged, thou mayst stand firm, valiantly fight, 
 and successfully conquer." 
 
 When the Garter is buckled on, the elect knight is 
 brought before the sovereign, who puts about his 
 neck the George pendant attached to a sky-coloured 
 ribbon. Again he receives an admonition, returns 
 thanks to the sovereign, salutes the knights-com- 
 panions present at the Chapter, and from that time 
 is counted a knight-companion, although he is not 
 entitled to the full rights and honours of the Order 
 until he has been solemnly installed in St. George's 
 Chapel at a later day. 
 
 The great requirement for election is, that none 
 shall be chosen who are not free from infamy or 
 reproach. Hence he who is chosen is girded with
 
 1 42 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 the unstained Girdle of Knighthood. The Chapter 
 is then declared to be over, and the striking ceremony 
 is ended. 
 
 There was one other notable institution which 
 was closely associated with the beginnings of the 
 Order of the Garter the foundation of Military 
 Knights. The members were originally called 
 Milites Pauperes, or Poor Knights. He who tells 
 of the founding of this institution says that the 
 king, " out of the great regard he had for military 
 honour, and those who had bravely behaved them- 
 selves in his wars, yet chanced to fall in decay, 
 made a provision for their relief and comfortable 
 subsistence in old age, for providing for them in 
 this his foundation." 
 
 At first twenty-four were appointed, but later, 
 Edward III. made the number twenty-six, one for 
 every knight-companion. Each of these named a 
 military knight in the early days of the Order, and 
 each of the poor knights wore a red mantle with 
 the escutcheon of St. George, without any garter 
 to surround it. After their election the military 
 knights received twelve pence every day they 
 attended service in the chapel, or were resident in 
 the college, besides forty shillings per annum for 
 other needs. 
 
 The duty of these poor knights was "to pray 
 for the sovereign and the knights-companions, and 
 to be every day present at high mass, the masses 
 of the Virgin Mary, and at vespers and compline ; 
 in default whereof they were to lose the twelve 
 pence." The payments seem to have been dropped
 
 i 4 4 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR 
 
 during Edward IV.'s reign, but were renewed by 
 Henry VIII. 
 
 Elizabeth declared that the number should be 
 thirteen, all of whom should have been in war, or 
 other service of the realm, and having little or 
 nothing to live on. Many strange instructions were 
 issued. One was, that upon the king's or queen's 
 coming to or from Windsor, the thirteen knights 
 were to stand at their doors in their special apparel, 
 and do obeisance, and also at the Feast of St. 
 George, when the knights-companions went in and 
 out 
 
 In William IV.'s reign the term " poor knights " 
 was dropped, and the members were called from that 
 time " military knights." * 
 
 * The story of the garter is given in accordance with the account 
 of the old writers, Ashmole in particular.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 WINDSOR'S FAMOUS PRISONERS. 
 
 WINDSOR CASTLE has been a prison in bygone 
 days, and not a palace only. Some say that it 
 was meant at first, when the Conqueror began to 
 build it, to be a State Prison, that it was adapted 
 for that purpose by William, and employed as 
 such from time to time down to the days of the 
 Commonwealth. One has but to go through the 
 story of Royal Windsor to discover that the castle 
 has been no common prison merely, but a place 
 to which " princes and nobles, statesmen and rulers, 
 outlaws and warriors, patriots and traitors," have 
 been brought to languish in captivity until the 
 hard hearts of the royal prison-keepers softened, 
 or a ruinous ransom had been paid. 
 
 To tell of all who have been thrust into some 
 of Windsor's dungeons or towers is impossible ; 
 but there are some so famous that their coming 
 and going are wrapped up not in Windsor's story 
 only, but the nation's also. 
 
 Before William Rufus had long been king, he 
 sent Robert Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland 
 hither. Mowbray was one of the Normans who
 
 146 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 came over with the Conqueror, and he had been 
 handsomely rewarded for his services. After receiv- 
 ing his earldom he drove back Malcom, King of 
 Scotland, when he invaded the north of England, 
 and slew him at Alnwick. In later years he grew 
 discontented, and joined in a conspiracy with others 
 who were angry at the harsh forest laws. Instead 
 of making a protest to the king, the conspirators 
 planned his assassination. 
 
 Possibly at the time Rufus was not aware of the 
 conspiracy, but having heard that Mowbray had 
 plundered some Norwegian ships acting very much 
 like an ordinary pirate on the sea he called upon 
 the earl to appear before him at Windsor, and 
 answer for his conduct. When the earl refused 
 obedience, because the king would not guarantee 
 that he should return to his home in safety, William 
 proclaimed him an outlaw, and a great force of 
 armed men being sent against him, he was taken 
 prisoner. After that he was deprived of his earldom, 
 taken to Windsor, and thrust into a dungeon. 
 
 It is not known how long the unhappy earl was 
 kept there. He was alive when twenty years had 
 gone, and he was then in a dungeon in the Norman 
 keep. One who lived in the olden time says that 
 he was still living after thirty-four years of im- 
 prisonment, and he was still a prisoner when he 
 died. But in an old manuscript it is said that 
 Henry I, released him when he had taken a solemn 
 oath to spend his last days a feeble, broken-down 
 old man as a monk at St. Albans. It was in- 
 finitely better than spending his days in the dark
 
 148 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 dungeon, even if he did not like the monastic 
 life. 
 
 Kings also found a prison in Windsor, and one 
 of them William the Lion of Scotland is said 
 to have been brought to the castle as a prisoner, 
 where he had once been an honoured guest. The 
 captivity was the outcome of the fortunes of war. 
 Once he went to see Henry II., at Windsor, on 
 business concerning the earldom of Northumberland. 
 So great was the friendship between the two 
 monarchs that William went with Henry to the 
 wars in France, and fought so finely as to win 
 admiration from friend and foe alike. Then came 
 a day when the friendship was broken, and a 
 fierce quarrel followed. It ended in an under- 
 standing, and William, with his brother David, went 
 with Henry to Windsor to do homage. 
 
 When Henry II. 's sons were in arms against their 
 father, William took advantage of the troubles of 
 the English king, marching across the border with 
 an army of eighty thousand men, and ravaging 
 the whole of the north of England. The York- 
 shire barons brought out their armed retainers, and 
 joining together, under the leadership of Ranulph 
 de Glanville, they defeated W T illiam at Alnwick in 
 1174, an d made him prisoner. 
 
 The northern lords treated the captive king with 
 great indignity, for when he rode into the presence 
 of Henry, his legs were roped together under the 
 horse's belly. 
 
 The old historians do not agree as to William's 
 prison. Some say that it was at Falaise, and others
 
 WINDSOR'S FAMOUS PRISONERS. 149 
 
 at Windsor Castle, but it is almost certain that it 
 was at Windsor, for it was here that the treaty 
 was signed between the two kings. William was 
 not released until he had surrendered several 
 castles, and did homage to Henry for Scotland, 
 and all his other dominions. He also had to engage 
 that all his barons and bishops should take an oath 
 of fealty. 
 
 Another royal captive came to Windsor, and he 
 also was a king of Scotland David Bruce. When 
 Edward III. was in France, engaged in laying 
 siege to Calais after having won the splendid 
 victory at Crecy, in 1346, the King of France 
 asked Bruce to invade England, and the Scottish 
 king did as he was desired. It was an invasion 
 planned at a time when England was least prepared 
 since the English army was in France. 
 
 With undaunted courage Queen Philippa raised 
 an army and marched to the north, where she met 
 the Scots at Neville's Cross. The fight that followed 
 ended in disaster for the invading army, and the 
 field was strewn with the dead, among whom were 
 Scotland's greatest warriors. It is said that when 
 the fight had waged for five hours, and defeat 
 came to the Scots, David slipped off his horse, and 
 sought to escape. But a squire named John 
 Copland saw him and gave chase. David crept into 
 a thicket, but Copland, crawling in after him, dealt 
 with him so roughly that the king was compelled 
 to yield himself a prisoner. 
 
 The heroic queen took the royal captive to 
 London, and lodged him in the Tower until the
 
 150 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 king came home from France. David "rode into 
 the city on a little black charger, and the streets 
 of London, as he pressed on to the Tower, were 
 lined with all the Companies of the city, clad in 
 their liveries." 
 
 Before long Edward returned from the wars, and 
 David Bruce went with him down to Windsor. In 
 response to the entreaty of David's queen to name 
 the price of her husband's liberty, Edward answered 
 that he should not return to Scotland as king, but 
 be known as Lord David de Bruce. The con- 
 ditions were so hard that for eleven years David 
 would not consent, and through all that time he 
 was a prisoner. 
 
 A ransom was named at last, but only on 
 condition that David should render homage to 
 Edward, owning the English king as Lord of 
 Scotland, from whom he held his kingdom. The 
 terms were hard, but David, longing for freedom, 
 yielded, and went back to Scotland to get the 
 ransom money. It was an anxious journey for him, 
 and he came back to Windsor, shamed and 
 humiliated, since he had to tell Edward that the 
 Scottish lords refused to own the King of England 
 as Lord of Scotland, at whatever risks. At last 
 100,000 marks were named instead, to be paid in 
 ten yearly instalments, while twenty young hostages 
 of noble birth and three great lords were to travel 
 to Edward's court as security for the money. 
 
 The task which was set for David, to raise the 
 ransom money, was a great one. Scotland was so 
 poor that David had once more to return to
 
 WINDSOR'S FAMOUS PRISONERS. 151 
 
 Windsor and tell the king that the money would 
 never be raised unless the instalments were made 
 smaller, and spread over a greater number of years. 
 
 While David was a prisoner in Windsor Castle, 
 Jean le Bon, or John the Good, King of France, 
 rode in. He, also, was a captive. The war between 
 the two nations had been renewed, and during the 
 campaign the Black Prince, with an army of twelve 
 thousand men encountered King John who had 
 sixty thousand. The armies met at Poitiers, and 
 on the i Qth of September, 1356, a battle was fought. 
 It was terribly disastrous for France, and added 
 another to the long list of England's famous 
 victories against overwhelming odds. Two dukes, 
 nineteen counts, five thousand men-at-arms, and 
 about eight thousand infantry lay dead on the 
 field. Two thousand men-at-arms were taken 
 prisoners, among them three princes, an archbishop, 
 numberless nobles, and most important of all, King 
 John. He and his mighty host had been over- 
 thrown in the first great battle fought in the name 
 of St. George since he was made the Saint of 
 Windsor. At Poitiers every knight and captain 
 used the name of St. George, and at the final and 
 most awful charge the men rode into the dense 
 mass of the French army with the famous cry, 
 " St. George and Merry England ! " 
 
 Before long Jean le Bon was at Windsor Castle, 
 a prisoner of war, whose only way to liberty was 
 by the payment of a heavy ransom. When he 
 rode in at the castle gates Windsor beheld the 
 strange spectacle of two captive kings within its
 
 152 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 walls. But John was treated as an honoured guest 
 rather than a prisoner. With all the courtesy of 
 chivalry Edward sought to lessen the grief of the 
 French king's captivity. " He was permitted to 
 hunt and hawk, and take what other diversions 
 he pleased, in the neighbourhood," says Froissart, 
 " as well as the Lord Philip, his youngest son, who 
 had also been captured at Poitiers." The greater 
 number of the captive French lords remained in 
 London, but they visited the king as often as 
 they pleased, and were " prisoners on their parole 
 of honour." 
 
 John, however, sent private letters to France, 
 contrary to the conditions of his captivity, and 
 consequently he was removed from Windsor to 
 Hertford Castle, and a year later, to Somerton 
 Castle. After a while he was taken to the Tower 
 of London. When next he came to Windsor, it 
 was to sign a treaty which was to gain him his 
 liberty. 
 
 Unhappily for John, the conditions of the treaty 
 were such that the French nation rejected them. 
 " King John," was the cry throughout the land, 
 ' should remain a prisoner in England, leaving the 
 remedy for their ills in France to God, Who would 
 provide one in His own good time." 
 
 Three millions of golden crowns were the ransom 
 for the king, and it would have been paid as agreed 
 upon. Unfortunately, while the money was being 
 raised, John heard that one of his sons, the Duke 
 of Anjou, who had been left at Calais as a hostage 
 for the payment of the ransom, had escaped. John
 
 WINDSOR'S FAMOUS PRISONERS. 153 
 
 made his son, Charles, regent of the kingdom, and 
 returned to England to give himself up until the 
 money should be paid. His sad words to Edward 
 when the two kings met, were : 
 
 " If good faith be banished from the earth it 
 ought to be still found in the hearts of kings." 
 
 John's grief seems to have broken his heart, and 
 after a short illness he died at the Savoy, in 
 London, in 1364. 
 
 Scotland's kin^s had a dire experience of captivity, 
 and Windsor was a prison for three of them. 
 James I. of Scotland was the most famous of them 
 all, and his imprisonment has won great sympathy 
 for him. It began when he was but a boy, and to 
 the lasting shame of Henry IV, he was kept a 
 prisoner during the best years of his life. The 
 time of his captivity lasted for sixteen years. 
 
 Requiring a better education to fit him for being 
 a king than Scotland could provide in those 
 turbulent days, he was sent, when he was eleven 
 years old, to France to be educated there. That 
 was in 1405. The ship in which he sailed was 
 captured by an English corsair, although Scotland 
 and England were at peace. Henry saw that if 
 he held the young prince as a hostage, he would 
 have a great advantage in his negotiations with 
 the father of the prince, Robert III. He said that 
 he would educate the boy, but sent him to the 
 Tower of London, where he was held a prisoner 
 for two years. Then lie was sent down to Windsor 
 Castle, where he was kept for sixteen years. 
 
 The regent, who was the Duke of Albany, did not
 
 154 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 desire his release when the old king died. He wished 
 to be ruler in Scotland himself, and therefore he took 
 no steps to obtain the boy-king's liberty. While 
 undergoing this long captivity James added to his 
 store of scholarship. He did so while mewed up 
 in the small chamber of the Norman Tower, which 
 is on one side of the Norman Gate. If he had 
 thought of escape he was reminded of its im- 
 possibility because of the thickness of the walls, 
 and the narrowness of the window through which 
 no man could pass. His only outlook was into 
 the moat garden, now the pretty garden which 
 Sir Dighton Probyn has made in the moat of 
 the Round Tower. What the garden was like in 
 those days one cannot tell. 
 
 Some say that the young king was kept in what 
 is now called the Maid of Honour's Tower, or the 
 Devil's Tower, which is to the south-east of the 
 Round Tower, next to George IV.'s Gateway. 
 Thence he looked out " to see the folk that went 
 by," that is on the road which then ran close to 
 the castle on the south side to Datchet, and which 
 was only done away with in Prince Consort's time, 
 when the present Datchet Road on the north side of 
 the castle was made.* 
 
 The captivity of James seems to have been 
 made as harsh as possible. . Never did he ride 
 forth to see the beauties of the forest without a 
 guard so strong that with all his longing to escape 
 he could find no opportunity. 
 
 * I am indebted to Canon Dalton for this information.
 
 THE NORMAN GATEWAY. 
 
 {The prison of James I. of Scotland and many other famous prisoners. 
 In the foreground is the Moat Garden.}
 
 156 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 While confined in the prison room he looked 
 out of the window one day and saw Joan Beaufort, 
 the niece of the murdered king, Richard II., walk- 
 ing in the moat Day after day she came, and 
 thus he grew to love the beautiful woman. Through- 
 out the days of longing, when he could only look 
 out of the narrow window, seeing without perhaps 
 being seen, he wrote a poem known as the " King's 
 Ouair." It beautifully described the garden and 
 the maiden in it. 
 
 " A garden faire, and in the corners set 
 An arbour green. '' 
 
 When Henry V. became king, the captivity was 
 made more easy. The young monarch was allowed 
 greater liberty. Indeed, it is said that Henry liked 
 the Scottish king, and took him when he went to 
 Troyes to negotiate a marriage with Princess 
 Catherine of France. Possibly it was then that he 
 saw more of the beautiful Joan Beaufort, and loved 
 her more by knowing her better. Longing to be free, 
 that he might offer her marriage and a crown, he 
 asked that his ransom be named. It was .40,000. 
 It was paid, and James was free ! Before he went 
 back to Scotland Joan Beaufort became his queen. 
 
 The after-story of the liberated king is a tragic 
 one. James found Scotland full of anarchy. Every- 
 thing was in disorder. His nobles cared nothing 
 for the law. The people were just as lawless. 
 Murder, robbery, and all manner of wickedness 
 were in the land. James found that the authority of
 
 WINDSOR'S FAMOUS PRISONERS. 157 
 
 the king was set at defiance, and when he sought 
 to restore order, and to punish the evil-doers, 
 the men who should have aided him turned against 
 him, and proved his bitterest enemies, and did all 
 that was in their power to hinder his efforts to 
 make the people law-abiding. A conspiracy was 
 entered into, not merely to dethrone the monarch, 
 but to assassinate him. The story has been told, 
 showing how the king's enemies accomplished his 
 death. 
 
 "On the night of the 2Oth of February, 1437, 
 when James and his courtiers, Atholl and his 
 grandson among the rest, were amusing themselves 
 with chess and music, reading romances arid hear- 
 ing tales told, a highland woman who had already 
 warned James again appeared in the courtyard, 
 and asked an audience, but the king put her off 
 till morning. About midnight he drank the parting 
 cup, and the courtiers left. Robert Stewart, the last 
 to leave, tampered with the bolts, so that the 
 doors could not be made fast. 
 
 " While James was still talking with the queen 
 and her ladies round the fire, the noise of horses 
 and armed men was heard. James, suspecting it 
 was Graham, wrenched a plank from the floor with 
 the tongs, and hid himself in a small chamber 
 below. Catherine Douglas, afterwards called Bar-lass, 
 one of the queen's maids, heroically barred the 
 door of the house with her arm, which was broken 
 by the incursion of Graham and his followers. 
 
 "James's hiding-place was soon discovered. After 
 two of the band were thrown down by the king,
 
 158 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 Graham thrust a sword through his body. Those 
 who saw the corpse reported that there were no 
 less than sixteen wounds in the breast alone. 
 
 "The alarm spread to the king's servants and 
 the town, and the conspirators, who could not 
 have effected their object without the aid of traitors 
 in the king's household, fled. Before a month had 
 elapsed all the leaders were caught, and within forty 
 days tortured and executed with a barbarity which 
 was deemed unusual even in that age." 
 
 Such is the story of a sad ending to a ruined 
 life, in which the prison-room of Windsor Castle 
 played so great a part.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 DARK DAYS. 
 
 EDWARD III.'s famous reign having come to an end, 
 Richard II. became master of Windsor Castle in 
 !377- The king apparently loved life in the royal 
 borough, and he was here when Wat Tyler's 
 rebellion broke out. When news of the rising came, 
 Richard took horse at once and rode hard with his 
 attendants to the Tower, where his danger would not 
 be so great, but he came back almost immediately. 
 Windsor's strong walls seemed safer to the timid 
 king. Later on a very important interview took 
 place on St. George's Day, when the leading citizens 
 of London came to Windsor. 
 
 The object of their coming was to tell the king 
 what they thought of the government's bad manage- 
 ment of the country. Ruin was bound to come 
 unless there was a great change. Some hot 
 words were spoken on both sides, but the king 
 felt that he must listen, especially while the people 
 had not forgotten Tyler's rebellion, and were 
 uneasy. 
 
 Some time after this it was found that St.
 
 160 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 George's Chapel was in such bad repair that it 
 would fall into a ruinous heap if some money was 
 not speedily spent upon it. Of all the men in the 
 world who should be chosen to make the place 
 secure, few would have mentioned Geoffrey Chaucer, 
 the famous poet of his day. Yet the king chose 
 him. He had been acting as the king's valet, and 
 not having much to do, spent the greater part of his 
 time in writing poetry, which made him one of the 
 most renowned poets England ever had. King 
 Richard had always liked him, and once when in a 
 generous mood, had granted a pitcher of wine to 
 Chaucer every day in the year. 
 
 Then came this appointment as master of the 
 works. Yet we need not wonder at it when we hear 
 that the builder's art in those days was thought to 
 be " a noble, even a royal art, the proper study and 
 profession of a liberal mind." Hepworth Dixon 
 tells us that kings were of the craft, and many 
 learned men, bishops, and the like. They were 
 architects, and as proud of what they did with 
 bricks and mortar as with their learning. Wykeham, 
 the bishop, was as proud of building the Winchester 
 Tower at Windsor, as of anything he ever did. It 
 was not to be wondered at, therefore, that a poet 
 should turn his hand to building, since so many 
 other great men had done the same. 
 
 Richard II. was anxious as to the repair of 
 the beautiful chapel, which not only had a leaking 
 roof, which might fall on the heads of those who 
 were worshipping in it at any time, but had walls so 
 unsafe that a sudden gale might make St George's
 
 DARK DAYS. 161 
 
 Chapel a heap of ruins. It was not only St. 
 George's shrine, but in it were some very costly 
 things. The chapel just then had many precious 
 relics in it. There were in it crosses, crowns, images, 
 and jewels ; the bones of St. Bartholomew, St. 
 Thomas, and many another saint, too many to name 
 here. There was the arm-bone of St. George, and 
 fragments of the supper-table of our Lord, and of 
 the Virgin's tomb ; some of the blood of St. 
 Thomas of Canterbury, and one of the stones with 
 which St. Stephen was martyred, a shirt belonging 
 to the same saint, together with one of St. Thomas. 
 Lambourn says that there was a white girdle which 
 St. John had given to St. Mary, and some milk and 
 a candle-end of the Virgin Mary's. So precious 
 were these relics that the king, who was a very 
 religious man, was most anxious for their safety, 
 and requested Chaucer to begin the work without 
 delay. 
 
 Consequently the poet-architect was told to seek 
 out " woodmen, carpenters, and masons, both in 
 town and country, and to seize them in the king's 
 name for his royal service." No man was exempt, 
 unless he worked for some church or priory. The 
 wages of Chaucer's captured workmen were fixed by 
 royal order. If a digger or a joiner ran away, thinking 
 of higher wages, he was subject, so we read, to 
 arrest by the sheriff, and to be kept in prison until 
 the king set him free. Cole-house, in Windsor, 
 was full of men who had run away from this forced 
 service. It was hard for them in every way, for 
 no person was allowed to shelter or employ these
 
 162 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 runaways, and anyone proved to have given 
 shelter or employment to the men who left the 
 work at St. George's Chapel was condemned to lose 
 all his goods. 
 
 Chaucer was also able to demand building 
 materials. " Timber and stone, mortar and lead, 
 paint and glass, he was to take at his own price," 
 and there was the prison ready for any man who 
 was bold enough to refuse the poet's men when they 
 came with the horses to carry away what they 
 wanted. This is a sample of the tyranny exercised 
 in the olden days, and one can believe that Windsor 
 was not a pleasant place to live in when the people 
 could call nothing their own. 
 
 But Chaucer never finished his task of repairing 
 the royal chapel. Either he grew tired of the task, 
 and wanted to get back to his poetry, or something 
 happened. Six months after the start on January 
 22nd, 1391, he appointed a deputy. But even the 
 deputy did not do more than make the roof safe, 
 and save the walls from falling. 
 
 Richard II. was an ill-fated king. Nothing seems 
 to have prospered with him. St. George's Chapel 
 remained unfinished and dilapidated. The king fell 
 out with his people, with his uncles, and with the 
 Londoners. His claims for labour made the Windsor 
 citizens very angry, and they were sullen, and did 
 not cheer him when he rode through the streets. 
 Then came a day when he had to say "good-bye " 
 to his girl-wife, who was only eleven years old, and 
 whom, when he rode through the gates of Windsor 
 Castle, he never saw again. When he turned for a
 
 DARK DAYS. 163 
 
 last look, she was weeping. Soon after that he was 
 murdered. 
 
 It was in this reign that a great scaffold was 
 erected within the castle walls, whereon the king sat 
 to hear an appeal for high treason by Henry, Duke 
 of Lancaster against Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. 
 It was agreed that the two nobles should fight out 
 their quarrel, but Richard unwisely stopped the 
 fight, banished Lancaster and Norfolk from the 
 realm, and forfeited Lancaster's estates at the same 
 time. The other nobles showed their anger plainly. 
 
 The banished Henry had his revenge, for while 
 the king was with his army in Ireland, he landed at 
 Ravenspur, in Yorkshire, with twenty men, and 
 raised the standard of revolt. Before many days 
 had gone he had an army of sixty thousand men, and 
 marched to London, where he was crowned king, 
 Richard having been deposed by parliament. Before 
 long the unfortunate prince was murdered in 
 Pontefract Castle. 
 
 The banished duke was now Henry IV., and 
 came down to Windsor to take possession of the 
 castle. But he was in danger there. There came 
 one day to the castle gates a company of five 
 hundred armed horsemen, many of them men of 
 rank, and everyone of them bent on taking the 
 monarch unawares, and killing him. But a friend 
 sent him warning, so that when the horsemen rode 
 into the castle, they found that the king had gone, 
 and was riding hard to London. There he gathered 
 an army and put down the rebellion. 
 
 Henry's perfidy with regard to the young Prince 
 
 M
 
 1 64 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 of Scotland James I. who was treacherously 
 captured and detained a prisoner for so many 
 years, has already been noticed. It stands, and will 
 so stand for ever, as a blot on the king's memory. 
 Murderer, usurper, and a betrayer of so young a 
 prince, Henry IV. does not leave a pleasant record 
 behind him. 
 
 When Henry V. came to the throne, Windsor saw 
 but little of the warlike king, but the queen was 
 often here. The Emperor Sigismund, of Germany, 
 was a visitor at Windsor, having come to attend the 
 Feast of the Garter, and be made a Companion of 
 the famous Order. It is said that this monarch 
 brought with him the supposed heart of St. George, 
 and it was kept in the castle until Henry VIII.'s 
 reign. 
 
 In the eyes of many, the most important event at 
 Windsor was the birth of a prince, who became 
 later, Henry VI., and proved to be one of England's 
 most unfortunate kings. At the time of the prince's 
 birth, Henry V. was besieging Meaux. When news 
 was carried to him that a son and heir had been 
 born at Windsor, his face clouded over. Some 
 astrologer had told him that if such a son were born 
 in the castle, the boy would be unfortunate all 
 through his life. Hearing what the messenger said, 
 the king turned to Lord Fitz-Hugh, and exclaimed : 
 
 "My lord, I, Henry, born at Monmouth, shall 
 small time reign and much get. Henry, born at 
 Windsor, shall long reign and all lose : but as God 
 will so be it." 
 
 The prophecy proved true. Young Henry was
 
 DARK DAYS. 165 
 
 born on the 6th of December, 1421. In nine 
 months he was a king, his famous father dying on 
 August the 3 ist, 1422. The marvellous successes of 
 Edward III., and Henry V. in France as shown in 
 the famous battles of Cressy, Poitiers, and Agincourt 
 were all eclipsed by the disgrace which came to 
 the British arms in the new king's reign. Joan of 
 Arc appeared, and under her strange leadership the 
 English were driven out of all their possessions in 
 the land, with the exception of Calais. 
 
 The reign of Henry VI. was equally disastrous in 
 England. The king and his government irritated 
 the people greatly, so that when an adventurer 
 named Jack Cade came forth, and declared himself 
 to be Mortimer, cousin of the Duke of York, and 
 unfurled the banner of insurrection, he soon had 
 twenty thousand men at his back. 
 
 But most deplorable of all was the outbreak of 
 the Wars of the Roses, when the Duke of York 
 claimed the crown of England as the descendant of 
 the second son of Edward III., whereas the king 
 was descended from the. Duke of Lancaster, the 
 third son of the great monarch. Exasperated by 
 the loss of France, by the insolence of the queen 
 and her favourites, and by the fact that the king was 
 too gentle to rule the nation in such troublesome 
 times, nobles and others rallied round the Duke of 
 York, and the dreadful wars began. They lasted 
 for thirty years, and during that time twelve pitched 
 battles were fought. It is said that the wars almost 
 destroyed the old nobility, and cost the lives of two 
 kings, a prince, ten dukes, two marquesses, twenty-
 
 1 66 THE STORY OF ROYAL WJNDSOR. 
 
 one earls, twenty-seven lords, two viscounts, one 
 lord prior, a judge, a hundred and thirty-three 
 knights, four hundred and fifty-one esquires, and 
 eighty-five thousand private soldiers. Henry V.'s 
 prophecy came true in all reality, for in the end, the 
 king, falling into the hands of his enemies, was 
 murdered. The old chronicler says of the un- 
 fortunate monarch, that the king thus " ended his 
 transitory life, having enjoyed as great prosperity as 
 favourable fortune could afford, and as great troubles 
 on the other side as she, frowning, could point 
 out." 
 
 In the Wars of the Roses Windsor played no 
 part in Henry's day, and Berkshire scarcely any, 
 save at Newbury, when, in 1460, the town was 
 attacked by the Lancastrians, who took the place, 
 and hung, drew, and quartered all the inhabitants 
 who would not shout for the Red Rose of York. 
 But the war brought a new king to Windsor. Henry 
 lived in Windsor a great deal, and while there he 
 did something which the townspeople greatly 
 appreciated, for he granted a new charter which 
 allowed many fresh benefits, and reduced the rent of 
 the town to the castle from \"j to ^10. 
 
 Here Henry's kindness to the town seems to have 
 ended, and in time a sad reign came to a close. 
 He died in prison, and some say that he was 
 murdered. In Richard III.'s reign his body was 
 brought to Windsor, and buried in St. George's 
 Chapel, and rests there to-day under a flat stone in 
 the south aisle. 
 
 Had he not been born in such turbulent times,
 
 DARK DAYS. 167 
 
 when war and hate caused men to forget his real 
 character, he would have been counted a good king. 
 It was his misfortune to live in such times. He was 
 a lover of peace, but it was his unhappy lot to have 
 war forced upon him.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE FOUNDATION OF ETON COLLEGE. 
 
 WHEN Henry VI., in his boy days, looked out from 
 the windows of the castle, or stood upon its terraces, 
 he saw nothing on the other side of the river but the 
 straggling little town of Eton, the meadows beyond 
 it, and the distant Chiltern Hills. Before he died, 
 he saw a magnificent pile of buildings known now 
 the whole world over as Eton College. It was 
 surrounded by beautiful green meadows which 
 became in later days the famous playing fields. 
 
 The idea of founding a college at Eton doubtless 
 sprang up in Henry's mind since, having been 
 trained to a high degree of scholarship, he knew 
 the value of education in days when the majority 
 of men and women were very ignorant. Someone 
 said to him that it would be a great boon to the 
 country if a good school were built, and Henry 
 fell in with the idea at once. Bishop Wykeham 
 had started a school at Winchester, and it was 
 prospering greatly, and when the king visited it, 
 he came back to Windsor with the full determination 
 to build just such another at Eton, close to the
 
 FOUNDATION OF ETON COLLEGE. 169 
 
 castle, where he could have his eye on it continually, 
 and watch its progress. 
 
 He was young at the time not more than 
 nineteen and someone suggested a little further 
 consideration ; but he set about working out the 
 scheme at once. It was to be a costly one, but he 
 provided the money out of his own purse, and from 
 some other sources. 
 
 The foundation of Eton College dates from 1440, 
 and the college itself took the name of The Blessed 
 Marie of Etone beside Wyndesore. Not only did 
 the young king grant the charter for the foundation, 
 but granted another entitled De Donatione, in 1442. 
 This provided the money for maintaining the 
 college. Henry wanted it to endure " To all time, 
 to the praise, glory, and honour of our Crucified 
 Lord, to the exaltation of the most glorious Virgin 
 Mary, His Mother, and the support of the Holy 
 Church His Bride." 
 
 The foundation of the chapel was laid by the 
 king on July 3rd, 1441. It was not intended at first 
 that Eton College should be a school merely, but a 
 college for secular priests also, and an almshouse 
 for poor and infirm men. Before Henry died 
 he removed the almshouse from Eton, but the 
 priests' college was there for nearly four hundred 
 years. 
 
 To make all things as perfect as possible, the king 
 visited Winchester again and again, to mark in his 
 mind the best for Eton. During these visits he 
 found that William Waynflete, who had charge of 
 the school, was such an able schoolmaster, that he
 
 ijo THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 asked him to come to Eton. Waynflete came, and 
 stayed until 1447. 
 
 Throughout those early years the building went 
 on, and money was spent freely to make things 
 meet the king's desire for beauty and usefulness. 
 Whatever was thought likely to help on the school 
 was obtained, and the best builder was employed 
 whom money could induce to undertake the task. 
 Roger Keyes, the Warden of All Souls' College, 
 having superintended the erection of that building, 
 was asked to come to Eton for a similar work It 
 took nearly fifty years to complete everything. 
 
 Henry became more and more enthusiastic as the 
 building proceeded. The college became one of 
 the hobbies of his life, and he determined to 
 make the chapel one of the finest buildings in 
 the kingdom. 
 
 Roger Keyes had every possible help in the 
 building, for just as Geoffrey Chaucer had power 
 to press workmen into the building of St. George's 
 Chapel, and claim the use of horses and waggons, 
 so Keyes could call for the same sort of service 
 at the college. Consequently within two years 
 from the start, some of the buildings were ready to 
 receive their occupants. The ideas with which 
 Henry began changed greatly as time went on. 
 He intended to find room for twenty-five scholars 
 and six choristers, but then came the decision to 
 make room for seventy scholars, and the choristers 
 were to number sixteen. 
 
 The conditions for the admission of the scholars 
 were these : " They were to be admitted for the
 
 172 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 purpose of studying grammar. They were to be 
 poor and in need of help, not less than eight or 
 more than ten years old, and not of servile birth. 
 They were to be chosen first from families who 
 resided on the college estates ; secondly, from 
 Buckinghamshire or Cambridgeshire ; thirdly, from 
 elsewhere within the realm. The choristers were to 
 be preferred in the election of scholars, if found 
 competent. None were to remain after the age of 
 eighteen, unless their names had been placed on the 
 roll of succession to the King's College, founded at 
 Cambridge in the same year. 
 
 The outbreak of the Wars of the Roses caused a 
 gloom to fall over Eton, and even threatened the 
 existence of the college. There was always the 
 fear that if the king's enemies triumphed, the victors 
 would destroy whatever Henry had set his mind 
 on. Eton, therefore, had everything to lose. When 
 Edward IV. came to the throne those fears proved 
 to be too well founded. The new king took away a 
 great portion of the college estates, and some of its 
 revenues, with the result that the college was 
 considerably poorer, and lost nearly all its promising 
 glory. Whereas its revenues had been 1,500 in 
 1468, they were not more than 370 ; and not only 
 so, the almsmen were abolished. 
 
 Better days came when the country grew quieter, 
 and the new king was firmly seated on the throne. 
 Edward's queen had relations who were well- 
 disposed towards the college, and used their 
 influence to secure its prosperity. So much did 
 Earl Rivers do for it, that the " Provost and Fellows
 
 FOUNDATION OF ETON COLLEGE. 173 
 
 bound themselves and their successors to cause a 
 masse dayly to be said within the church .... 
 at the auter of our lady, at a quarter past seven in 
 the morning." Sixty strokes of the great bell 
 were to be sounded daily before the beginning of 
 the mass. 
 
 Eton, however, was still in danger, for Edward IV. 
 actually made a grant of some of its lands to the 
 Dean and Chapter of Windsor. Fortunately for 
 Eton the deed was never signed. It is said that 
 the beautiful Jane Shore pleaded the cause of Eton 
 with the king, who listened to her and went no 
 further with the matter. Had she not succeeded, 
 there might still have been in existence a school, but 
 not the famous one we have to-day. 
 
 Unfortunately, Eton has been in another similar 
 danger, and the wonder is that the college survived 
 throughout these threatened changes of fortune. 
 Henry VIII., when he was destroying the monas- 
 teries, caused the authorities many anxious days. 
 They feared lest they should again lose some of 
 their lands, and many of their privileges, so that the 
 king might fill his empty money-chests. It was 
 said among men in those days that Henry intended 
 to close many of the principal schools and colleges 
 in England, but fortunately he did not do so. 
 When Edward VI. came to the throne bright days 
 for Eton promised, since it gained some of the 
 estates that had been taken away when the 
 Reformation began ; but after a while the old fear 
 came when it was proposed to shut up the colleges 
 and take their lands and money. Had this been
 
 174 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 done, Eton College, would have ended its career. 
 An Act of Parliament saved Eton and the Univer- 
 sities, the chapels at Newton and Windsor, and the 
 cathedral churches. 
 
 We have some interesting statements as to what 
 life was like at Eton in those olden times. Between 
 1528 and 1534, when Richard Cockys or Cox was 
 master, the school prospered greatly, and was 
 popular among boys whose parents were wondering 
 whether their sons should go to Eton or elsewhere ; 
 for in those days others besides scholars were 
 admitted boys who were boarded and lodged at 
 the expense of their parents, and not out of the 
 college funds. But the reputation was not an 
 enviable one when Nicholas Woodhall or Udall was 
 at the head of the school. He was " The best 
 schoolmaster and the greatest beater of our day," 
 said Tusser, the poet. Tusser, who was educated at 
 Eton, said in one of his poems : 
 
 " From Paul's I went, to Eton sent, 
 To learn straightways the Latin phrase, 
 Where fifty-three stripes given to me 
 
 At once I had ; 
 
 For fault thus small, or none at all, 
 It came to pass thus beat I was; 
 See, Udall, see, the mercy of thee 
 To me, poor lad." 
 
 A day at Eton in Elizabeth's time left nothing 
 like the leisure that the boys enjoy to-day. They 
 " Rose at five, said Latin prayers antiphonally, while 
 dressing, then made their own beds, and swept out
 
 176 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 their chambers. Two by two they ' went down ' to 
 wash, probably at some outdoor conduit or fountain. 
 . . . . At six, the Under-master came into school, 
 read prayers there, and the day's work began. 
 There were seven forms, the Seventh being the 
 highest. The Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh composed 
 the Upper School under the Headmaster ; the 
 Fourth held the intermediate position ; and the 
 three lower forms were the Under-master's depart- 
 ment. 
 
 " They seem to have worked continuously from 
 six o'clock till past nine, when there was an interval 
 of an hour ; then they had prayers at ten, and went 
 to dinner at eleven." 
 
 No breakfast is mentioned. From twelve to three 
 it was school again, after which came an hour's 
 interval. School was held again from four to five, 
 when supper followed. Work was continued from 
 six till eight under the superintendence of monitors. 
 Then there was an interval for " bever," which 
 consisted of a draught of small beer and a piece of 
 bread. Bed was next. There was not much time 
 for play in such a day as that. 
 
 Eton was greatly favoured by Queen Elizabeth's 
 constant attention, for she often went to the college 
 to see how things were going on. This helped on 
 the school considerably, and great progress was 
 made. The school gained a great name in the land, 
 so much so that in 1613 more than a hundred 
 candidates were waiting for admission, " And the 
 Provost was importuned on all sides by anxious 
 parents " to take in their boys.
 
 178 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 When the Commonwealth came, Eton, like many 
 another college, was likely to be closed, for an order 
 was issued for the sale of the lands belonging to 
 such institutions. Fortunately, Eton and some other 
 places were excepted under certain conditions. 
 
 The size of the school was given in a list in 1678, 
 when there were 207 boys. Of these seventy-eight 
 were Collegers, but the others were Oppidans the 
 boys who paid. 
 
 To tell the whole history is impossible, since it is 
 too long. From those seventeenth century days 
 the progress has been continuous, the splendour of 
 the record being unexampled. To-day the numbers 
 are greater than ever, and the school may claim to 
 be the greatest in the world. 
 
 There have been many changes in the buildings. 
 If Henry VI. could come now and see the place he 
 would not know it, so different is the school from 
 what it was when he thought it finished. On the 
 long list of masters and scholars are found many of 
 the most famous names in our history, great states- 
 men, judges, soldiers, churchmen, authors, and others 
 who have made their mark. 
 
 Among many things that lend interest to Eton's 
 story, the Montem was too important a matter to be 
 passed by. "It was the grand holiday of the 
 neighbourhood, a most exciting scene," says one. 
 It consisted of a procession to a small mound on 
 the southern side of the Bath Road, which has given 
 the name of Salt Hill to the spot. The chief object 
 of the celebration was to collect money for salt, 
 according to the language of the day, from all
 
 FOUNDATION OF ETON COLLEGE. 179 
 
 persons who assembled to see the show, from 
 travellers on the road, and even from those who 
 resided in the neighbourhood. The scholars 
 appointed to collect the money were called salt- 
 bearers. They wore fancy dresses, and had with 
 them scouts who were not so showily clothed. To 
 all who gave, tickets were given, and these they 
 showed to prevent a second demand. Immense 
 sums were collected, from ^800 to ^1,000, and given 
 to the senior scholar, who was called the Captain of 
 the School. 
 
 As to its origin, " The English Spy " says that it 
 is traced far back to the days of the foundation of 
 the college, and was a ceremony of the bairn, or 
 boy-bishop. It originally took place on the 6th 
 of December, the festival of St. Nicholas, the patron 
 of children. That was the day on which it was 
 customary at Salisbury and elsewhere, to elect the 
 boy-bishop from among the children belonging to 
 the cathedral. This mock dignity lasted until 
 Innocents' Day, and during all that time the boy 
 performed the various functions of a bishop. If he 
 died before that day he was buried with all the 
 ceremony which was observed when a bishop was 
 interred. 
 
 Some say that the custom of Montem originated 
 in a procession to perform an annual mass at the 
 altar of some saint to whom a small chapel might 
 have been dedicated on the small mound called Salt 
 Hill, a ceremony very common in Catholic countries. 
 As for the selling of salt, that would be the natural 
 thing at such a time. As for the Montem itself, 
 
 N
 
 i8o THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 "The English Spy" says that until the time of Dr. 
 Barnard, the procession of the Montetn was every 
 two years, and on the first or second Tuesday in 
 February. "It consisted of something of a military 
 array. The boys in the remove, 4th, and inferior 
 forms, marched in a long file of two and two, with 
 white poles in their hands, while the 6th and 5th 
 form boys walked on their flanks as officers, and 
 habited in a variety of dress, each of them having 
 a boy of the inferior forms, smartly equipped, 
 attending on him as a footman. The second boy 
 in the school led the procession in a military dress, 
 with a truncheon in his hand, and bore for the day 
 the title of Marshal : then followed the Captain, 
 supported by his chaplain, the head scholar of the 
 5th form, dressed in a suit of black, with a large 
 bushy wig, and a broad beaver decorated with a 
 twisted silk hat-band and rose, the fashionable 
 distinction of the dignified clergy of that day. It 
 was his office to read certain Latin prayers on the 
 mount at Salt Hill. The third boy of the school 
 brought up the rear as Lieutenant. One of the 
 higher classes, whose qualification was his activity, 
 was chosen ensign, and carried the colours, which 
 were emblazoned with the College arms and the 
 motto Pro more et monte. This flag, before the 
 procession left the College, he flourished in the 
 
 school-yard The same ceremony was 
 
 repeated after prayers on the mount. The regiment 
 dined at the inns at Salt Hill, and then returned to 
 the college ; and its dismission in the school-yard 
 was announced by the universal drawing of all the
 
 i82 ,THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 swords. Those who bore the title of commissioned 
 officers were on the foundation, and carried spon- 
 toons " weapons like halberds but " the rest were 
 considered sergeants and corporals, and a most 
 curious assemblage of figures they exhibited. The 
 two principal salt-bearers consisted of an Oppidan 
 and a Colleger ; the former generally some noble- 
 man, whose figure and personal connections might 
 advance the .... collections. They were 
 dressed like running footmen, and carried each of 
 them a silk bag to receive the contributions, in 
 which was a small quantity of salt. During Dr. 
 Barnard's mastership the ceremony was made 
 triennial, the time changed from February to Whit- 
 Tuesday, and several of its absurdities retrenched." 
 
 When Montem was done away with the Fourth of 
 June celebration became the great day at Eton. 
 The reason for the " Fourth " standing out so 
 prominently as the most important day in the 
 whole year at Eton is that it is the anniversary of 
 George III. 's birthday. In an old copy of "Eton 
 College Chronicle" are these lines : 
 
 "Fourth of June, the old King's birthday! Keep it ever, 
 
 heart and soul, 
 Crews and captains, flags and flowers, row to Surly, flowing 
 
 bowl. 
 Bands contending, bells resounding, blue and red and 
 
 yellow flames, 
 Mock the moon, illuminating all thy ripples, silver 
 
 Thames ! " 
 
 Here we have, as it were, the " Fourth " condensed
 
 FOUNDATION OF ETON COLLEGE. 183 
 
 into four lines of doubtful poetical merit, which 
 practically set forth the chief doings of the Eton 
 boys and their masters, to say nothing of the 
 shopkeepers and residents generally of Eton and 
 Windsor. In this way George III.'s memory is kept 
 green.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL. 
 
 BY the fortunes of war Edward IV. had won his way 
 to the throne of England, and having crushed his 
 enemies, began to turn his attention to the govern- 
 ment of the country. Very early in his reign, which 
 dates from 1461, he came to Windsor. Almost at 
 once he looked into the charter of the town, and since 
 the citizens were nervous lest he should take away 
 some of the privileges which Henry VI. had granted, 
 he set their minds at rest by confirming the old 
 charter, and giving permission for holding an annual 
 fair on the feast of St. Edward the Confessor. 
 
 One incident occurred in 1470, which showed that 
 so long as the Earl of Warwick, who was called the 
 " King Maker," lived, and Henry VI. was still alive, 
 the king was never safe. The king was visiting the 
 Archbishop of York, and was one evening washing 
 his hands before going to supper, when one of his 
 attendants entered the room without ceremony. 
 The king looked up angrily at the man. 
 
 "How now, Master Ratcliffe?" he cried; but the 
 man raised his hand for silence.
 
 ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL. 185 
 
 " Let me whisper in your ear, sire," said the other, 
 and going to the king's side quickly, he spoke in 
 a low tone. 
 
 " Sire, there be in this house at this moment a 
 hundred armed men. They wait in hiding until you 
 sleep, and it is their purpose to steal into your 
 chamber, bind you hand and foot, and carry you 
 away a prisoner, probably to your death at the 
 headsman's block." 
 
 Edward was the bravest of the brave, but this 
 news startled him. Buckling on his sword, and 
 seeing to his weapons, he beckoned to Ratcliffe, and 
 stole down the stairs to the courtyard. Going to 
 the stables in the darkness, he took a horse, told 
 Ratcliffe to do the same, and walking softly and 
 unseen, they came to the meadow, where no foot- 
 steps could be heard on the grass. Then the two 
 sprang into their saddles, and driving in their spurs, 
 rode on and on through the night, taking quiet roads 
 which Ratcliffe knew. It was morning, but still 
 dark, when two riders, whose horses were white with 
 foam, pulled up at the gate of Windsor Castle. 
 
 " Who goes there ? " came the soldier's challenge. 
 
 " The king ! " 
 
 The warder, knowing Edward's voice, swung open 
 the gate, and the riders were safe. For that timely 
 warning which brought Edward away from death, 
 the king made Ratcliffe Lord Fitz- Walter. 
 
 When Henry was dead, and for the time being the 
 Wars of the Roses had ended, Windsor was the 
 scene of many magnificent pageants. It mattered 
 not to Edward that the widow of Henry was a
 
 1 86 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 prisoner in one of the castle towers, mourning the 
 cruel death of her husband. The festivities were 
 carried through with great splendour, and the sounds 
 of revelry must have reached her ears, even if she 
 did not see what was going on when she looked out 
 of the narrow windows of her prison room. 
 
 During this reign, the king, looking round the 
 castle, saw many things that displeased him. The 
 Clewer Tower, the Almoner's Tower, and Berner's 
 Tower were greatly dilapidated, and he gave orders 
 for them to be pulled down, so that the stone and 
 timber, which was good, might be used for other 
 purposes. He noticed that St. George's Chapel was 
 in bad repair in spite of all that Chaucer had done. 
 Looking across the river to Eton, he saw the 
 beautiful College Chapel, and determined that as 
 fine a building should be raised within the castle 
 walls, and on the site of the old chapel. 
 
 Orders were given at once for the destruction 
 of the chapel, and Bishop Beauchamp was directed 
 to superintend the erection of the beautiful structure 
 we see to-day. The building took many years to 
 complete, although in five years it was ready for the 
 bells; but not until Henry VII. was king was it 
 said to be finished. Most of the stone was brought 
 from Caen in Normandy, "whence large supplies of 
 stone were often obtained for ecclesiastical edifices 
 in the middle ages." But a great quantity came 
 down the river from a place called Tainton, in 
 Oxfordshire. The timber came from the forest 
 close at hand. 
 
 In Edward's time the eastern portion of the church
 
 1 88 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 was roofed, but the choir was not completed. Every- 
 thing was being done on too beautiful a scale to 
 admit of hurry. It was the ambition of the king 
 and the architect to make it a monument of archi- 
 tectural beauty. Even Beauchamp did not live to 
 see the completion of his task. Sir Reginald Bray 
 succeeded him, and so interested did he become in 
 his work, that when money was hard to get from 
 the king, he found it out of his own fortune, and at 
 his death left all he had to make it possible to 
 render the chapel as beautiful as he desired to make 
 it. Sir Richard Holmes has spoken of this splendid 
 chapel as the culminating glory of Edward's reign, 
 
 Henry VII. carried on the work, and also began 
 the " Tomb-house," which is now known as the 
 Albert Memorial Chapel. He intended it to be his 
 tomb, but altered his mind, and built one instead at 
 Westminster Abbey. Henry VIII. gave the Tomb- 
 house to Cardinal Wolsey, who made it more 
 beautiful yet, thinking to make it serve as his own 
 burial - place. He arranged that the mausoleum 
 should be made of " white and black marble, with 
 eight brazen columns around it, and four others in 
 the shape of candlesticks." 
 
 The other Tudors and the first two Stuart kings 
 made various alterations, but they did not affect the 
 general structure. They added, however, to the 
 beauty of the place. The dean and chapter 
 trembled for the chapel when the Civil War came, 
 for men knew how the so-called Roundheads, or 
 Cromwell's soldiers, ruined churches and cathedrals 
 throughout the land, smashing beautiful windows
 
 IQO THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 and ornaments, because they deemed them part of a 
 superstitious worship, which ought to be destroyed. 
 The clergy of St. George's feared the coming of 
 the Roundheads, but Cromwell, who was with them, 
 prevented anything like wanton destruction. Every- 
 thing, however, in the way of beautiful ornament 
 was taken away, so that when Charles II. came back 
 to England after his long exile, he and his friends, 
 on entering the place, did not know it. Colonel 
 Venn, who was in charge of the chapel, recom- 
 mended Cromwell to turn out the dean, canons, 
 minor canons, and others who belonged to the 
 chapel, and the order was given. But they were 
 allowed to take their goods after they had been 
 searched. Venn then began to take possession of 
 the valuable things in the chapel to turn them into 
 money. He carried off Edward IV.'s coat of mail, 
 " and his surcoat of crimson velvet, embroidered 
 with gold and pearls, and decorated with rubies, 
 which had hung over his burial-place from the time 
 of his funeral." He also tore up the seats of the 
 Poor Knights, and other woodwork, spoiling the 
 painted windows and the organ. The gold and 
 silver that was found was sent up to London to be 
 coined into money. 
 
 When Charles II. came to Windsor at the Restora- 
 tion in 1660, he looked round the castle in dismay, 
 and especially when he saw what the Cromwellian 
 soldiers had done to St. George's Chapel. It 
 seemed at first a hopeless task to make the chapel 
 beautiful again, but none the less he gave orders for 
 the work to be begun, and for the musical service to
 
 CHOIR AND ORGAN OF ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL, WITH THE 
 BANNERS OF THE KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER
 
 1 92 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 be revived. In the days of James II. an organ was 
 brought to the chapel from Winchester. 
 
 In George III.'s reign, the interior of the chapel 
 was restored at the expense of the king. It is said 
 that the chapel was re-paved, " a new altar screen, 
 organ-loft, and organ were erected, and a con- 
 siderable portion of the carving renewed, including 
 several entire stalls." Since those days there have 
 been constant repairs in the chapel and the cloisters. 
 Sir Richard Holmes speaks of St. George's Chapel 
 as the centre of the great pile, meaning Windsor 
 Castle, and its crowning ornament, the wonder and 
 admiration of every beholder.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE TUDOR KINGS IN WINDSOR. 
 
 NOTHING of importance happened in Windsor after 
 the magnificent funeral of Edward IV., until Henry 
 VII., the first of the Tudor sovereigns, came to the 
 throne. Henry greatly enjoyed life in Windsor, if 
 one may judge by his frequent residence there. It 
 was a glorious place for the costly pageants, and 
 although the king never loved to spend money, yet 
 he was tempted greatly to part with it for the sake 
 of adding to the splendour of the occasion. 
 
 Such an occasion arose when Philip, King of 
 Castile, visited Windsor Castle. It must have been 
 a sight worth seeing, not merely to have witnessed 
 the reception, but the ceremony of electing the royal 
 visitor a Knight of the Garter. Those who knew 
 King Henry wondered at his readiness in spending 
 his money, since he was so miserly, and never 
 hesitated to fine his subjects for trifling faults in 
 order to put money into his treasury. But in time 
 men understood. He spent this money at Windsor 
 in order to make great gain. He made it an 
 opportunity for concluding a treaty of commerce, by
 
 194 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 which the greater part of the profits was for the 
 English King. 
 
 But one thing which was to the shame of both 
 monarchs chanced while they were staying at 
 Windsor. Henry asked Philip to surrender 
 Edmund de la Pole, Edward IV.'s nephew. De la 
 Pole was hiding in Spain, since he knew that if 
 Henry could lay hands on him his life would be in 
 danger. Philip had told him that he might live in 
 safety in his dominions. 
 
 " I would have him in my own keeping," said 
 Henry, when the two sovereigns were talking about 
 the young prince. 
 
 Philip protested that he could not in honour give 
 up De la Pole, but when Henry pressed him he 
 agreed to send the prince back to England on 
 condition that Henry would not take his life. So 
 far as that was concerned Henry kept his promise, 
 but he left instructions to his son that when he was 
 dead the new king should behead him. Nothing 
 more disgraceful was ever done in Windsor than 
 that, and to the lasting shame of the dead king and 
 the new one, De la Pole was executed. 
 
 In Henry VIII.'s reign a greater monarch yet 
 came to Windsor on a visit to the king, in 1522, the 
 Emperor Charles V. of Spain. While in Windsor, 
 the emperor went to St. George's Chapel, wearing 
 his mantle of the Garter. On that occasion he sat 
 in his own stall. Before he left Windsor, Charles 
 " covenanted among other things to take to wife the 
 Lady Mary, daughter to the King of England, but 
 afterwards, upon consideration, his mind changed,
 
 THE TUDOR KINGS IN WINDSOR. 19$ 
 
 for the which the Englishmen sore murmured 
 against him." 
 
 Henry often came to Windsor, which was his 
 birthplace, and saw to the well-keeping of the castle. 
 He built the great gateway which bears his name, 
 and also added some Datchet land to the Home 
 Park. While in Windsor, once, he showed how he 
 could display his dislike for those who excited his 
 displeasure, and how vindictive he could be. 
 Edward, Duke of Buckingham, was charged with 
 treason, and justly or unjustly, one scarcely can say 
 which, was condemned, in 1521, to be deprived of 
 his Garter knighthood. This deprivation was an 
 unpleasant ceremonial. Two men, in the presence 
 of the king and all who were in St. George's, brought 
 in a ladder on their shoulders, took it into the choir, 
 where they reared it against the stall of the 
 disgraced earl. That being done, Rouge Croix, one 
 of the officials of the Order, mounted the ladder, and 
 read from a parchment the sentence which declared 
 the earl a traitor, and therefore that he was deprived 
 of the high honour of Knight of that famous Order. 
 That done, Rouge Croix tore the earl's banner of 
 arms from its place, and flung it to the ground. The 
 brass plate, which recorded his rank as Knight of 
 the Garter, was wrenched away, and fell with a loud 
 clang upon the floor. It was followed by the sword, 
 helmet, mantle, and crest. Garter King-at-Arms 
 waited at the foot of the ladder, and as Rouge Croix 
 began to descend, he stepped forward and spurned 
 the things which lay upon the floor with his foot, 
 kicking them down the nave, out of the west door 
 
 O
 
 196 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 of the chapel, down the steps, and through Henry's 
 gateway, and so without the precincts. 
 
 Henry's royal father had been miserly, but the 
 young king spent his father's immense fortune, equal 
 to more than three millions of present-day money, 
 with all the carelessness of a spendthrift. His 
 pageants at Windsor meant spending money like 
 water, and Henry loved more than anything to 
 display the splendours of the Order of the Garter. 
 
 Often there came to Windsor the man who was 
 the most powerful in all the realm Cardinal Wolsey. 
 Wolsey, who was a butcher's son, became immensely 
 rich, and loved to display his greatness and his 
 wealth. Whenever he came to Windsor he came as 
 a king would come, with splendour and great 
 ceremony. He had five hundred servants, among 
 whom were ten lords, fifteen knights, and forty 
 esquires. As we have seen, the king gave him the 
 Tomb-house, and Wolsey accepting the princely 
 gift, began to convert it into the most gorgeous 
 mausoleum that money could make possible. In his 
 own mind he resolved that it should be more 
 splendid than the chapel of Henry VII. at West- 
 minster, and he employed a Florentine artist named 
 Benedetto to carry out the work. The gilding alone 
 had cost Wolsey more than 1,000, and was not 
 even half completed when the cardinal fell into 
 disgrace. It " long stood a splendid ruin." When 
 Cromwell came into power at the time of the 
 Commonwealth, the sarcophagus, or stone coffin, 
 was carried away and thrust into a lumber hole, 
 where it stayed until someone found it. Its value
 
 i 9 8 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 being understood, it was used to form part of 
 Nelson's tomb in St. Paul's Cathedral, " so that 
 one of England's greatest heroes now rests under 
 the identical slab intended for England's proudest 
 Churchman." 
 
 The fall ( f Wolsey was due to a lady of the court 
 whom King Henry afterwards brought to Windsor 
 as his queen. He had seen this beautiful woman 
 among the queen's maids of honour, and in order 
 to make Anne Boleyn his wife, he wanted to divorce 
 the queen. The Pope refused his permission, and 
 Wolsey, like a man between two stools, anxious to 
 please the king, and afraid to displease the Pope, 
 did what he could to delay the divorce. The king, 
 knowing this, became angry, and put him out of his 
 offices. He did yet more, for he determined to ruin 
 him. He seized his palace and his wealth, and in a 
 few days Wolsey had lost nearly all. The Cardinal 
 died of a broken heart. Later, Henry married Anne 
 Boleyn, having brought her to Windsor Castle. 
 
 While Windsor saw the coming of the new queen, 
 whom later the king sent to be beheaded, the people 
 some years later witnessed in the streets the coming 
 of a funeral procession, such as had never been seen in 
 the town before. It-was the funeral of the king's wife, 
 Jane Seymour, who had died in October, 1537- The 
 body was brought down from Hampton Court " with 
 all the pomp and majesty that could be." The 
 description given by one who saw it amazes us. 
 " The corpse was put in the chair covered with a 
 rich pall, and thereupon the representation of the 
 queen in her robes of estate, with a rich crown of
 
 OLD HOUSES IN CHURCH STREET. HENRY VIII. 'S GATEWAY IN 
 THE DISTANCE ; NELL GWYNNE's HOUSE ON THE RIGHT, 
 
 AND THE KING'S HEAD MUSEUM. 
 (From a picture in Alderman Barber's Collection.)
 
 200 THE STOR^ OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 gold upon her head, all her hair loose, a sceptre 
 of gold in her right hand, and on her fingers rings 
 set with precious stones, and her neck richly adorned 
 with gold and stones ; and under the head a rich 
 pillow of cloth of gold tissue ; her shoes of cloth of 
 gold, with hose and smock, and all other ornaments. 
 The said chair drawn by six chariot horses trapped 
 with black velvet : upon every horse four escutcheons 
 of the king's arms and queen's, beaten in fine gold 
 upon double sarcenet ; and upon every horse's head 
 a shaffron of the arms." 
 
 When the Reformation came because of Henry's 
 displeasure with the Pope, the abbeys and churches 
 round about Windsor suffered greatly. - The king 
 had been as active as any man in Europe in showing 
 his hatred for the Reformers, and wrote a famous 
 book against Martin Luther. The Pope was so 
 pleased that he gave Henry the title of Defender of 
 the Faith, and the letters F.D. are now seen on all 
 our English coins. When the Pope refused to grant 
 the divorce of Catherine of Aragon, Henry began 
 that great religious revolution in England which is 
 known as the Reformation. He drove the abbots 
 and monks out of the monasteries, seized the wealth 
 which belonged to them, and threatened with 
 hanging and burning any who dared to acknowledge 
 the power of the Pope. The decree went forth that 
 all were to consider Henry, and not the Pope, the 
 head of the Church in this country. Many refused, 
 and Windsor, like other places, had its martyrs. In 
 1542, James Mallet, who had been a canon of 
 Windsor since 1516, was put to death for "having
 
 THE TUDOR KINGS IN WINDSOR. 201 
 
 spoken adversely at his own table " of the king's 
 dealings with the monasteries and other matters. A 
 treacherous guest told the king, and Mallet had to 
 die. Robert Testwood, Henry Filmer, and Anthony 
 Pearson, the year after, were burnt in Windsor. 
 John Marbecke, a musician of Windsor, would have 
 been burnt also, had it not been for Bishop Gardiner, 
 who begged the king to pardon him. 
 
 In the crowd that gathered round to see the 
 martyrs burn at the stake was the Vicar of Bray, 
 a village not far from Windsor. Fuller tells the 
 story of this turncoat clergyman thus : " The 
 vivacious vicar hereof, living under King Henry 
 the Eighth, King Edward the Sixth, Queen Mary 
 and Queen Elizabeth, was first a Papist, then a 
 Protestant, then a Papist, then a Protestant again. 
 He had seen some martyrs burnt at Windsor, and 
 found this fire too hot for his tender temper. This 
 vicar being charged for being a turncoat, and an 
 inconstant changeling, ' Not so,' said he, ' for I 
 always kept my principle, which is, to live and die 
 the Vicar of Bray ! ' ' This story led to the writing 
 of the old song, the refrain of which is this : 
 
 " And whatsoever king may reign, 
 Still I'll be the Vicar of Bray, sir." 
 
 The abbeys of Berkshire suffered greatly in 
 Henry's reign, and since there were so many the 
 destruction was very noticeable. Eton College 
 only saved itself by declaring for the king's 
 supremacy. In the "Annals of Windsor" we read
 
 202 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 that " further to the west lay Burnham Abbey, 
 while in the horizon the eye approached the Abbey 
 of Reading, one of the richest monasteries in the 
 kingdom, and holding the manor of Windsor 
 Underoure, close to the walls of Windsor Castle. 
 On the other hand, descending the river, the Priory 
 of Ankervvyke lay on its left bank ; and further on, 
 the ancient mitred Abbey of Chertsey ; while in the 
 forest of Windsor, on the south, lay the less wealthy 
 and recently abandoned Priory of Broomhall, a small 
 convent of Benedictine nuns." 
 
 The abbey lands were all taken away. Lambourn 
 tells us that when the abbey lands went thus 
 two colleges were built with the money, namely 
 Christ Church and Trinity. " Six new bishoprics 
 were endowed, one of which was the diocese of 
 which Berkshire forms a part. Most of the wealth 
 was sold or given to the king's favourites. Henry 
 took Reading Abbey to be a palace for himself. 
 Abingdon Abbey went to Sir Thomas Seymour, the 
 king's brother-in-law. The abbot's country estate 
 at Cumnor was granted to George Owen, physician 
 to the king, but the abbot, Rowland Pentecost, was 
 allowed to live at Cumnor Hall, and was granted a 
 pension till his death." Hugh Cook, the abbot of 
 Reading, was hung, drawn, and quartered, because 
 he " stoutly denied the king's authority over things 
 dedicated to God," and refused to give up the abbey 
 placed in his care. 
 
 When the Commissioners went out in all 
 directions, and brought in their reports, those who 
 came to Berkshire had this to say about things in
 
 THE TUDOR KINGS IN WINDSOR. 203 
 
 Windsor : that there were " nine hundred houseling 
 folk, 'and above/ in the Royal Borough"; the 
 vicarage was worth only ,8 a year, and there was 
 no provision for helping the parish work, save the 
 priest who was paid by the members of the Guild 
 of the Holy Trinity for " the general ease of the 
 inhabitants." 
 
 St. George's Chapel lost greatly by the Reforma- 
 tion, for it lost at least a thousand marks a year. 
 Since a mark was worth thirteen shillings and 
 fourpence, the loss came to nearly ,700. As money 
 was worth a great deal more in those days than 
 now, the real loss must have been more than ^"2,000 
 a year. There was a further loss of ^"1,500 a year 
 by the cutting off of "the offerings of Sir John 
 Shorne's shrine at Northmarston, in Buckingham- 
 shire." 
 
 When Henry VIII. died, he was buried at 
 Windsor with great funeral splendour. To make 
 the way clear for the passing of the body on the 
 road from London to Windsor, orders were given to 
 cut all the overhanging boughs of the trees on the 
 roadside, lest they should tear the silken banners. 
 The state chariot on which the body lay was drawn 
 by eight great horses, " trapped with black," and on 
 each rode a child, carrying a king's banner. The 
 body of the king was robed in state, the Order of 
 the Garter, jewels, crimson, gold, with the sword and 
 sceptre, and other signs of kingliness. The pro- 
 cession was four miles in length, those who were 
 in it being the great men of the kingdom. Windsor 
 never witnessed such a ceremony.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 WHEN ELIZABETH WAS QUEEN. 
 
 PASSING by the reign of Edward VI., we come to 
 the two Tudor queens, Mary and Elizabeth. As a 
 princess, Mary had often resided at Windsor Castle, 
 but when she came as queen she brought her 
 husband with her, Philip of Spain, She had been 
 married to him a few days before at Winchester ; 
 this was on July 25th, 1554. 
 
 When the royal pair drew near to Windsor 
 they saw the mayor of the town waiting with his 
 councillors in their robes, at the bottom of Peascod 
 Street, up which their Majesties would ride in order 
 to enter the castle. A silver trumpet called for a 
 halt, and then the mayor spoke a welcome from 
 himself and from the citizens who were crowding 
 round. At the close of his speech there was a mighty 
 cheer. Queen Mary thanked the people for their 
 splendid welcome, after which the way was cleared, 
 and the royal procession moved on. But as their 
 Majesties rode on many shook their heads, for they 
 cared not for the Spaniard, whom they felt would be 
 no friend to England.
 
 WHEN ELIZABETH WAS QUEEN. 205 
 
 Elizabeth's reign meant much for Windsor. She 
 was fond of the place, for many of her girl days were 
 spent there. But when Mary was queen the princess 
 went to Bisham Abbey, Great Marlow. In reality 
 she was a prisoner there, and in charge of Sir Richard 
 Hoby, whom Mary held responsible for her safe 
 keeping. Knowing that he would lose his head if 
 Elizabeth escaped, Hoby guarded her well. He 
 had her watched day and night, and meanwhile 
 knew that his prisoner might at any time be sent to 
 the scaffold. Her own relief must have been great 
 when news came to her that her jealous sister was 
 dead, and that she was not only free, but was 
 queen. 
 
 Windsor Castle was in a dilapidated state when 
 she came to see it. Things had gone very wrong in 
 Mary's reign. " The Chapel had no Dean, the Keep 
 no Constable. . . . Roofs, doors, and windows 
 were decayed. Pigeons had pecked through the 
 leads, and choughs filled up the pipes. Garden and 
 slope had come to waste. The prison and the bridge 
 were equally unsafe." 
 
 Hence, when once she was queen, Elizabeth began 
 to add to the buildings of the castle. What is now 
 the North Terrace was made in her reign. Before 
 the terrace had been formed there had been a bank 
 kept by a mere wooden railing and fence, but the 
 railing and the fence had rotted away, and must 
 have been an eyesore to the queen, who had seen it 
 in the best condition. Although, like her grand- 
 father, fond of money, and disliking to spend it, 
 Elizabeth was determined to make things look
 
 2 o6 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 better. Therefore she spent what must have been 
 a great sum of money on the terrace. Here, says a 
 writer who lived in the queen's days, " she walked 
 an hour every day before dinner, if not prevented by 
 windy weather, to which she had a great dislike." 
 
 The terrace has been described by Paul Hentzner, 
 who visited England while Elizabeth was alive, as 
 " a walk of incredible beauty, 380 paces in length, 
 set round on every side with supporters of wood, 
 which sustain a balcony from whence persons of 
 distinction can take the place of seeing hunting and 
 hawking in a lawn of sufficient space. For the fields 
 and meadows, clad with a variety of plants and 
 flowers, swell gradually into hills of perpetual 
 verdure up to the castle, and at the bottom stretch 
 out in an extended plain that strikes the beholder 
 with delight." On this terrace a beautiful part of the 
 castle was built, a new gallery and banqueting 
 house. This portion is now in use as the Royal 
 Library. The Hundred Steps were also begun by 
 the queen. 
 
 It must have been a pretty scene to witness the 
 queen with her maids of honour and her courtiers 
 walking up and down the terrace in the sunshine 
 with their " ruffs and hoops and embroidered 
 petticoats, intermingled with satin doublets, bright- 
 coloured hose, velvet cloaks, and gracefully plumed 
 caps." 
 
 Whether the queen complained of the state of the 
 Windsor streets it is impossible to say, but this is 
 known, that in her reign an Act was passed in 
 Parliament for paving the town. The Act had this
 
 208 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 sentence in it, that "the Streetes of the Queenes 
 Majesties Towne and Borrough of New Windsor 
 
 . . are yearely ympaired and made noysome 
 and foule by reason of the greate and daily 
 carriages " that come and go. The streets were 
 paved. A market house was also built, and strangely 
 paid for by using up the money which would have 
 been spent on the Corporation banquets. The 
 mayor put down a big sum of money to pay for the 
 market house which would have been spent in great 
 dinners for the councillors. Possibly some of them 
 grumbled sorely at the loss, but the queen praised 
 the mayor, and he was content. 
 
 Her Majesty seems to have made a great many 
 alterations at Windsor, for there was so much that 
 was not to her liking. Many a time she grumbled 
 because her dinner was served up cold instead of 
 hot, and when the reason was given she found that 
 the royal bakehouse was in the town, half-way down 
 Peascod Street. 
 
 The people were very loyal to the queen, and 
 attentive to her also. Whenever she came to the 
 castle in state the town was decorated "with tapestry 
 and pictures, and flowers, and groups of allegorical 
 figures, with giants and dragons stationed here and 
 there to meet her highness ; and boys and girls 
 starting forth from some place of concealment to 
 repeat their verses and present their offerings ; while 
 the firing of cannon, the beating of drums, the ringing 
 of bells, and the huzzas of the people rent the air." 
 Not only so. The mayor and corporation came in 
 their robes, and the gilded mace was carried. While
 
 WHEN ELIZABETH WAS QUEEN. 209 
 
 they knelt the mayor declared that the people of 
 Windsor offered freely and joyfully, and not grudg- 
 ingly, all that they had for the queen's disposing. 
 Fortunately she did not take the mayor at his 
 word. 
 
 The members of Eton College displayed their 
 pleasure because the queen often went over the river 
 to visit the place, and on every such occasion the 
 boys showed their loyalty by their addresses to her. 
 "One boy addressed the queen as a blooming rose, and 
 the light of the world, without whom the whole earth 
 would perish," while another " praised her beauty, 
 wealth, and wisdom, as the united gifts of Venus, 
 Juno, and Minerva." 
 
 Many famous men came to Windsor to see the 
 queen ambassadors from other lands ; some to ask 
 her to marry their royal masters, others to tell her of 
 the strange deeds they had done on the ocean, and 
 on the far-off Spanish Main ; others to talk with her 
 on matters of State, and especially of the cruel 
 doings of the Spaniards who were England's greatest 
 enemies at the time. Drake was among them, and 
 Hawkins, aud Raleigh. But none were more famous 
 than Shakespeare, the immortal bard, as he is called. 
 He came at times to read his plays to the queen, or 
 to act before her in the castle. 
 
 One of his plays especially concerns Windsor a 
 play written at the queen's command. It was done 
 in fourteen days, and was called " The Merry Wives 
 of Windsor." It was played before her majesty in 
 the new gallery she had had built in the castle. 
 
 We are told that Windsor at the time was a town
 
 210 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 of taverns, and that " facing the castle gate stood the 
 two chief hostelries, the White Hart and the Garter, 
 while the Antelope was in Peascod Lane, and the 
 Crown at the bottom of the Hundred Steps." The 
 White Hart was the most important, for the peers 
 and knights who attended the court and could not 
 find room in the castle, lodged there. At the Garter 
 the gentlemen in attendance on these great men put 
 up. In this inn Shakespeare lodged, and possibly 
 in some quiet room wrote in the fourteen days " The 
 Merry Wives of Windsor," which brings in the 
 legend of Herne the Hunter. 
 
 Herne, or as some call him, Richard Home, was a 
 keeper in the Great Windsor Forest, and by some 
 mishap was wounded while about his daily work by 
 one of the deer. It is said that he did some wrong 
 ; possibly killing deer which belonged to the king, 
 which rendered him liable to severe punishment. 
 This preyed upon his mind, and he became insane. 
 
 In his madness he hung himself from the branch 
 of an oak which bore his name in the years that 
 followed. But his spirit could not rest, and the 
 story ran to this effect, that he tied the horns of a 
 deer about his head, and went about naked in the 
 forest, becoming a terror to everyone who met 
 him. It was said by those who lived in those days, 
 that the demon hunter walked at nightfall round 
 the great oak which went by his name, and that 
 while he walked men saw his great stag horns. 
 If all were true that was said about him, his 
 presence was mischievous, for one of Shakespeare's 
 characters said that Herne the Hunter blasted a
 
 212 THE STORY Of ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 tree here and there, and took the cattle, and made 
 the cows yield blood instead of milk, and in the 
 dead of ni^ht people could hear him shaking a 
 chain, which sounded terrible as it broke the silence. 
 Sometimes, so it was said, Herne rode madly 
 through the forest at night on a weird-looking 
 figure, a large owl flying before him, and two great 
 black dogs ran beside him. They showed their 
 terrible teeth if anyone came near. 
 
 Many attempts have been made to fix the 
 position of the famous tree which was called Herne's 
 oak. It is said to be a great oak which stood in the 
 Little Park on the right of the footpath near what 
 is known as Queen Elizabeth's Walk, in Frogmore. 
 The tree was cut down and Queen Victoria planted 
 another at the same spot. King Edward VII. 
 planted another in its place. 
 
 During Elizabeth's reign Windsor was becoming 
 an important and busy place, and was larger than 
 it had ever been. Yet even then it was not more 
 than " a country town sleeping under the shadow 
 of its neighbour, the castle." Thames Street, at the 
 time, was steep and straggling, with picturesquely 
 gabled houses on either side, and all red tiled. At 
 the bottom of Castle Hill was the Cross, and stand- 
 ing with one's back to it, Peascod Street could be 
 seen winding its way downwards, and full of houses 
 as quaint as those in Thames Street. 
 
 In what is now High Street was the market 
 house, strange in its appearance, since it stood on 
 high arches. The topmost part was evidently an 
 inn, for an innkeeper paid to the Corporation a
 
 214 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 yearly rent of six pounds ; people coming up 
 Peascod Street could see the end of the building, 
 and its peculiar archways, and witness the busy 
 scene on market days. Lower down the High 
 Street, not then known as such, was the pillory, 
 where offenders were placed to receive the taunts 
 of the passers-by. If the pilloried one chanced to 
 be unpopular, rotten eggs, dead dogs and cats, and 
 all kinds of filth were thrown at him. Close by 
 on the castle side, was the Town Hall, where the 
 Mayor and Corporation transacted the business of 
 the town. Beyond this again, on the same side of 
 the street, stood the parish church of St. John the 
 Baptist, a church with an interesting history. 
 Following on for a hundred yards one came to 
 the open country, to the magnificent park which 
 stretched on and on, as part of Windsor Great 
 Forest. 
 
 The parish church was a prominent building in 
 the street, and standing well back to the view, 
 must have been most picturesque. No one seems 
 to know how long since a church belonged to the 
 royal borough, but it must be counted among the 
 oldest in Berkshire, or anywhere in the counties 
 around, since it is definitely mentioned that in 1189 
 Richard I. granted the church of St. John the 
 Baptist at New Windsor, with its chapels at 
 Windsor, to the Abbey of Waltham. This is 
 certain. But it is said that it formerly belonged 
 to the Abbey of Bisham in Berkshire, but no one 
 can say whether this was so or not. What is 
 known is, that the rectorial tithes of St. John the
 
 216 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 Baptist's Church in New Windsor were alienated, 
 with the bishop's permission, by Richard I., in 
 1189, to Waltham Abbey. They remained in the 
 hands of the Abbey until the dissolution of the 
 monasteries. 
 
 It may seem surprising that the grant should be 
 made to Waltham in Essex, but the explanation 
 is, according to entries in the "Victorian County 
 History," that Waltham Abbey had several manors 
 dotted about the country, and one of the manors 
 was West Waltham, in Berkshire In 1306 a grant 
 was made to the same Abbey of one acre of waste 
 in Windsor Forest, to build a house in which to 
 put the tithes belonging to the churches of Old 
 and New Windsor. The tithes which thus came 
 were cut off in Edward III.'s time. The land 
 referred to had been thrown into the Park, but by 
 way of compensation, the king, in 1365, granted a 
 third of the manor of Great Parndon. Even then 
 the St. John's parish church was not severed from 
 Waltham Abbey, for in 1517 the patrons were the 
 abbots and convent of that religious house, and 
 they appointed the vicars. 
 
 In 1749 the parish church was spoken of as a 
 spacious ancient building, which had within it many 
 neat and stately monuments of several good families. 
 The present church replaced the old building in 
 1820, but all through the centuries the parish church 
 had been the centre of Windsor's religious life. Men 
 and women were liberal from time to time, leaving 
 money at their death, but many gave freely while 
 they were alive. The present Vicar of Windsor, the
 
 WHEN ELIZABETH WAS QUEEN. 217 
 
 Rev. J. H. J. Ellison, pointing to the eight hundred 
 long years of certain history, said some time since, 
 that the people of the royal borough are inheritors 
 of a great tradition. They are also the inheritors of 
 many costly gifts, and chiefly those left by Arch- 
 bishop Laud and Theodore Randue, for education, 
 charity, and other objects.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 "THE MELANCHOLY REIGN OF CHARLES I." 
 
 COMING to the Stuart days, one may quickly pass by 
 the reign of James I., for very little happened in 
 Windsor to call for our attention. The historians 
 speak somehat disrespectfully of this king who was 
 called the " most learned fool in Christendom." He 
 is described as fidgeting about in his trunk hose, 
 and in the hot evenings of the dog days, when he 
 came to Windsor, holding learned discussions about 
 the most trifling things. 
 
 James came to the castle now and again, and 
 hunted in the forest, but he brought such a number 
 with him on his first visit that it is said that "there 
 was some squaring at first between our English 
 and Scotch lords for lodging." James had an 
 occasional quarrel with the people of Windsor, who 
 were jealous of their privileges, which the king 
 thought little of, but the people would not yield, and 
 the king had to own himself beaten. He also had a 
 dispute with the dean and canons of St. George's 
 over a part of the castle wall which had been blown 
 down in a gale. The king sent orders to the dean 
 to have it repaired, but the reply was that it was the
 
 " MELANCHOL Y REIGN OF CHARLES /." 2 19 
 
 king's business, and not the dean's and canons'. Tho 
 king was angry and went to law, but the judges 
 decided against James, who had to put the wall 
 right. Now and again a gorgeous procession of 
 horsemen came down from London, and rode through 
 the town and in at the castle gates. The king had 
 come to invest someone with the Order of the 
 Garter. 
 
 Little happened in the town when Charles I. came 
 to the throne, but one event shows what a strange 
 view the law took of crime. In 1629 a boy named 
 John Dean, aged eight years, was tried at Abingdon 
 Assizes, and hung for having set fire to two houses 
 in Windsor, "the youngest person ever executed in 
 England." 
 
 Some things were done towards the order and 
 cleanliness of the town; for example, "dunghills 
 were ordered to be removed from the streets and 
 lanes, as well as all other obstructions to the thorough- 
 fares, such as carts, timber, blocks, heaps of stones, 
 'or other offensive lumber.' Swine were not permitted 
 to wander loose in the market place ; washing was 
 prohibited in the streets ; " and many other orders 
 were issued, which show that Windsor must have 
 been a very untidy town even when royalty came. 
 
 People also were compelled to go to church or pay 
 a fine. This went on for years. In Charles II.'s 
 days, called also " The Golden Days," men were not 
 at liberty to please themselves on such points. A 
 master was compelled to see that his apprentices 
 went to church, or pay a fine of one shilling to the 
 churchwardens, who gave the money to the poor.
 
 220 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 The apprentices of Windsor must have been a great 
 worry to their masters when there was the park 
 to walk in, and the beautiful river in which to bathe 
 on a glorious summer day. 
 
 None thought in the early days of the reign of 
 Charles of the trouble that was in store, and that 
 some day the castle into which the king rode in such 
 splendour was one day to be his prison. He began 
 by making great alterations at the castle. " Elizabeth's 
 banqueting-house was pulled down, the east end of 
 the terrace was enclosed by a wall and gate, and the 
 magnificent fountain erected by Queen Mary was 
 demolished." Charles intended to have these in 
 more handsome style, but was not able to begin the 
 work. 
 
 He had too many things on his mind to think of 
 building at the castle. His quarrels with his parlia- 
 ment took up all his thought. Sometimes, when he 
 walked about the castle, he may have recalled the 
 troubles which had come to the Scottish kings from 
 whom he had descended, for the Stuarts were an 
 unfortunate race. James I. of Scotland was a 
 prisoner in Windsor for many years, and when he 
 went back to Scotland quarrelled with his lords 
 who murdered him. James II. was killed in war; 
 the third James was killed by some of those who 
 encouraged his son to rebel against him ; the next 
 James was killed in battle, and James V. died of 
 a broken heart. Charles' grandmother, the beautiful 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, was a captive in England 
 for twenty years, and then Elizabeth had her 
 beheaded. And now came these troubles in his
 
 " MELANCHOL Y REIGN OF CHARLES /." 221 
 
 own country, which ended in his own beheading. 
 The reign is now often called " the melancholy 
 reign of Charles I." 
 
 Charles began badly. He made the people pay 
 unjust taxes taxes which were against the law 
 and when the parliament complained, and the king 
 would not listen, the people split up into two 
 great parties the Royalists or Cavaliers, and the 
 Parliamentarians, sometimes called the Roundheads, 
 because they cropped their hair so closely. 
 
 The quarrel grew so hot that the only way of ending 
 it was by war, and thus began the great Civil War. 
 Battle after battle was fought, and the contest ended 
 in the ruin of the king, and his beheading at 
 Whitehall. 
 
 Berkshire experienced its share of the war. 
 Again and again the rival armies inarched through 
 the county, which was mostly Royalist. The 
 people of Berkshire chiefly rallied round the 
 king, at all events at the outset. It is said that 
 "all the county save the 'barren district' near 
 Windsor, was favourable to the king, who had also 
 in his hands the garrisons of Abingdon, Walling- 
 ford, and Reading." 
 
 While Charles was at Reading, trying to come 
 to some arrangement with his enemies, when neither 
 party would yield anything, the Earl of Essex, 
 the Parliamentarian general, was at Windsor, gather- 
 ing together a great army of "honest, disjointed 
 fellows," whom he drilled into fine soldiers, so 
 that he might suddenly sweep across the county, 
 some twenty miles, and shut up the king in Reading.
 
 222 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 But the king heard of his coming and was gone, 
 when the banners of the earl were seen from the 
 walls of the town. The garrison of three thousand 
 men refused to surrender when Essex came to the 
 Newbury Gate. Yet the earl had three thousand 
 horsemen, and fifteen thousand foot-soldiers. With 
 these he surrounded the town, intending to starve it 
 into surrender, whilst he sent his cannon to Caversham 
 Hill. From thence he shot into the town, the cannon 
 balls dropping into the streets. Starvation led the 
 people to open the gates, but the garrison marched 
 forth with all the honours of war, carrying with them 
 their arms and flags. 
 
 All this time Windsor was in the hands of the 
 king's enemies. Again and again the soldiers 
 marched through the town to fall on some company 
 of Royalists, who had the daring to come so near. 
 In September, 1643, the Parliamentarian army 
 hurried across to Newbury, where the king was 
 badly beaten, and lost many of his finest officers. 
 
 Windsor seems to have been the gathering place 
 for the army of the king's enemies during the Civil 
 War, and the starting-point when the Earl of Essex 
 marched through and through Berkshire and Oxford- 
 shire. By the beginning of 1644 nearly all Berk- 
 shire was in the hands of the Roundheads. Then 
 Oliver Cromwell began to make himself felt, and the 
 Cavaliers suffered terribly at his hands everywhere, 
 but in Berkshire particularly. Before the year 1644 
 ended the king was beaten again at Newbury, and 
 the whole county of Berkshire was in "a miserable 
 condition ; hardly a sheep, hen, hog, oats, hay,
 
 " MELANCHOL Y REIGN OF CHARLES /." 223 
 
 wheat, or any other thing was left for man to 
 feed on." 
 
 It seems a strange thing that Windsor, the home 
 of England's kings, should be the head-quarters of 
 the Roundhead army, and that in Windsor Town 
 Hall Cromwell and his chief officers should discuss 
 the future campaign. But it was so. In 1645 
 Cromwell's great army marched out of Windsor, and 
 defeated Charles again and again until he was 
 ruined, at Naseby. 
 
 When the war was drawing to a close, the army 
 and the parliament were at variance. The army 
 leaders were anxious, and met at Windsor Castle to 
 talk matters over. Then happened one of those 
 remarkable things which made the war so different 
 from any other. The Roundheads never went into 
 battle without prayer, and on this occasion, when 
 there were such anxieties, as to the course that 
 ought to be pursued, the officers met together, and, 
 as one of their number says : "spent one day together 
 in prayer . . . Coming to no further result that 
 day . . . we met again in the morning, where 
 many spake from the Word, and prayed." The 
 prayer-meeting lasted the whole day through, and 
 yet, when night came no agreement could be come 
 to, the opinions of the men who were present being 
 so different. They met again the third day, when 
 Major Goff preached, and showed the officers how 
 they had sinned, so that the Lord was against 
 them. The meeting lasted from nine in the morning 
 till seven at night, and at the end of the day, those 
 who were present became of one mind.
 
 224 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 The dispute between the parliament and the army 
 was, as to what should be done with the king, who 
 was now a prisoner in the hands of Cromwell- 
 When the prayer- meeting ended, each officer present 
 was of the opinion that it was their duty to "call 
 Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account, for 
 that blood he had shed, and mischief he had done, to 
 his utmost against the Lord's cause and people in 
 these poor nations." 
 
 When once Cromwell's men captured Windsor 
 Castle, on the 28th October, 1642, it was shut to the 
 king, until he was brought to it as a prisoner in 
 December, 1648. It was one of the saddest home- 
 comings one can imagine. " That monarch in 
 captivity, within his own beautiful castle, once the 
 scene of domestic enjoyment, guarded by sentinels 
 pacing under the very gateway at the end of the 
 terrace which he had himself built, is a truly 
 mournful and touching spectacle." 
 
 Charles had hoped to escape while on the road, 
 and his friends planned for it, but his keepers were 
 prepared for all such things. The king was placed 
 in the middle of a hundred horsemen, every soldier 
 having a loaded pistol in his hand. 
 
 The king was not kept long in Windsor, a few 
 days only. Then he was taken to London under a 
 strong escort, lest his friends should attempt his 
 escape. Once in the capital, he was never lost sight 
 of, until his head was struck off on the scaffold 
 at Whitehall, on January the 3Qth, 1649. A few 
 days later the body of the dead king was " privately 
 carried to Windsor, without pomp or noise," and laid
 
 " MELANCHOL Y REIGN OF CHARLES 7." 225 
 
 by his loving and weeping lords in the vault of St. 
 George's Chapel, side by side with the coffins of 
 Henry VIII. and his queen, Jane Seymour. 
 
 Throughout those unhappy years of strife many 
 prisoners of war were brought to Windsor. Some of 
 them we e Cavaliers of high rank men like the 
 Duke of Hamilton, and were lodged in various places 
 in the castle. Probably the most important were 
 placed in the Norman Tower, where James of 
 Scotland had stayed. Sir Edward Fortescue had 
 been there also, and carved his name on the wall, 
 with his coat of arms and the legend, " Pour le Roy," 
 " For the King." It was a bold thing for a man 
 to do who was in the hands of the king's enemies. 
 
 Cromwell, the Protector of the Commonwealth, 
 often came to Windsor, and stayed in the castle, 
 bringing his aged mother and his family with him. 
 Parliament resolved to sell the castle, the houses, 
 parks, and lands, and place the money which came 
 from the transaction in the nation's purse. But it was 
 never offered for sale, possibly because no one would 
 purchase such a big place. 
 
 Even that stern soldier, Cromwell, took a delight 
 in the beauty of the noble building and the country 
 all around. Evidently the Little Park was sold, for 
 as Lord Protector, Cromwell re-bought it. " He 
 planted and improved the forest ; he opened St. 
 George's Chapel for public worship ; he kept an eye 
 on the college lands, and he partially restored the 
 royal house." 
 
 But while he was in Windsor many a prisoner 
 languished in the dungeons. They were not all
 
 226 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 Cavaliers. " General Brown -, formerly Puritan 
 Governor of Abingdon, Mr. Ashburnham, and 
 Colonel Legg, who assisted in the attempted escape 
 of Charles from Hampton, Earls Lauderdale, 
 Kelly, and Rothes, and many other Scottish and 
 English prisoners, were detained here. The three 
 earls were prisoners during the whole nine years of 
 the Commonwealth, while numbers of the private 
 soldiers were transported beyond the seas." 
 
 Greater days were in store for Windsor when 
 Cromwell died.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 
 
 WHEN Oliver Cromwell died there was a desire 
 on the part of the English people to have a king 
 again, and Charles, the dead king's son, who was in 
 exile, was sent for. He came in 1660, entering 
 London on May Qth. He was received with joy, and 
 was crowned king as Charles II. 
 
 He must have been amazed and angry at what 
 he saw when he came to Windsor, for so much had 
 been taken away that was beautiful, and the castle 
 looked almost ruined. It had lost some of its most 
 valuable pictures, the costly tapestries, and other 
 things that were of priceless value. Everything in 
 St. George's Chapel which would have reminded 
 him of the splendours of the Order of the Garter, 
 was gone. It is said that he was filled with grief 
 when he saw the proofs of the wanton destruction. 
 
 He lost no time in removing all that was unsightly, 
 and at once he ordered everyone out of the place 
 who held any office or privilege granted by Crom- 
 well, whether rich or poor. After that, the king 
 filled up the vacancies in the Order of the Garter. 
 Some of these he had filled up while he was in exile 
 
 Q
 
 228 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 at the court of Louis XIV., of France, but now they 
 were installed with great splendour. 
 
 After that the king made Windsor his summer 
 residence, and he spared no expense to make this 
 princely castle worthy of being a home for kings. 
 Prince Rupert, as Constable of the Castle, began to 
 make improvements, " to trim up the keep, or high 
 Round Tower," and also handsomely adorned the hall 
 " with furniture of arms, which was very singular," 
 as Evelyn says in his diary, " by so disposing the 
 pikes, muskets, pistols, bandoleers, holsters, drums, 
 back, breast, and head pieces, as was very extra- 
 ordinary." But the king, quietly watching these 
 improvements, sent for Sir Christopher Wren, who 
 was the greatest architect living, told him that he 
 wanted the castle restored, and left him to follow 
 out his own will in making Windsor Castle the most 
 beautiful palace in the world. Wren had plenty of 
 money at his disposal for the work. 
 
 The architect changed the outward appearance 
 greatly in some parts, and the north terrace was 
 newly faced with stone, and greatly extended. It was 
 carried to the east and south sides. It was said at 
 the time that this great terrace was the noblest walk 
 in Europe, being 1870 feet in length, and affording a 
 most lovely view, not only of the Thames, but 
 of the country beyond for many a mile. 
 
 As for the interior of the castle, it was most richly 
 decorated. The windows were made larger and 
 more regular, a large chamber was prepared to serve 
 as a magazine of arms, and those who saw it 
 declared it most beautifully arranged. Many ugly
 
 230 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 apartments were made delightful, and on the walls 
 were hung large and costly paintings. Thus this 
 palace by the Thames had not its equal anywhere in 
 Europe at the time. Visitors came from all parts to 
 see it. They came the more readily because a stage 
 coach began to run from London to Windsor. The 
 starting of the stage coach made many begin to 
 grumble, because they said it took away the business 
 of the watermen, who had hitherto brought visitors 
 to the castle by the river. 
 
 Other changes were made to render the palace a 
 yet more beautiful place. A theatre was fitted up, 
 and this, as well as the state chambers, was 
 gorgeously painted by Verrio, the most famous 
 artist of the day. 
 
 Charles was not a monarch whom anyone could 
 admire or have any respect for, especially when one 
 thinks of the stories that were told of his doings 
 in Windsor. It is said that at times, in mad frolic, 
 he amused himself by running about the streets of 
 Windsor with others of the court, disguised with 
 masks, and entering the houses of the people, where 
 they did unheard of things. Strange to say, while 
 Charles spent money so lavishly on the castle, never 
 troubling himself as to where that money was to 
 come from, he was not at all anxious as to the 
 appearance of Windsor's chief ornament, namely, 
 St. George's Chapel. He allowed it to remain in 
 its neglected state. He cared more to watch the 
 building of Cumberland Lodge, and Cranbourne 
 Lodge, in the Great Park. During this reign one of 
 the king's servants, named Toby Rustot, placed the
 
 RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 231 
 
 great equestrian statue of King Charles in what is 
 now known as the Great Quadrangle, and close by 
 the foot of the Round Tower. It is said that it 
 cost him ,1,300, a great sum for those days. 
 
 One day in September, 1679, there was tremendous 
 excitement in Windsor arid in London. The king 
 was in Windsor at the time. The cause of the 
 excitement was that a conspiracy had been dis- 
 covered. Four ruffians were paid to go down to 
 Windsor, get into the castle, and kill the king. 
 When the news came all were on the alert. Every- 
 one who came was challenged before being allowed 
 to pass through the gate. A proclamation was read 
 at the market cross, at the top of Peascod Street, 
 offering one hundred pounds to any who helped to 
 capture the would-be murderers. But the men, 
 either hearing the proclamation, or finding that the 
 plot was discovered, never entered. It is said that 
 they fled from the country to save their necks from 
 the hangman. 
 
 One of the finest sights in Windsor is the so-called 
 Long Walk, which runs from the York and 
 Lancaster Towers, straight as the crow flies, for 
 three miles, ending at the statue known as the 
 " Copper Horse." Charles had this magnificent 
 avenue made, causing elms to be planted, tvvo rows 
 on either side, the whole of the way, and no less 
 than 240 feet wide. William III. completed it 
 during his reign. 
 
 It is said that Charles left little to be done to the 
 castle except the painting of the apartments, which 
 was carried on by his successors, James II. and
 
 232 THE STORY OF ROYAL\WINDSOR. 
 
 William III. In the latter's reign the whole was 
 completed. Queen Anne made several additions to 
 the castle, the flight of steps on the East Terrace 
 being one of them. 
 
 James II., when he came to the throne in 1685, 
 granted a charter to the town, and in it Windsor 
 Castle was spoken of as one of the principal 
 residences of the king, and those who had reigned 
 before him. The charter can never be forgotten 
 because it appointed Sir George Jeffreys as Recorder 
 of Windsor. His work as recorder was to act as the 
 judge at the Quarter Sessions in Windsor. This was 
 the Judge Jeffreys who was so intensely cruel when 
 dealing with those who had taken part in the Duke 
 of Monmouth's Rebellion. Someone said of this 
 judge: "We know not from which the mind recoils 
 with deepest horror, the merciless judgment of this 
 fiend in human form against the innocent and the 
 guilty, or his heartless levity in the midst of the 
 sufferings he inflicted. We search in vain the pages 
 of history for a name that has descended to a more 
 infamous immortality than that of Jeffreys. His 
 court has been variously spoken of as ' Jeffreys' 
 Campaign,' the ' Bloody Assize,' and the ' English 
 Reign of Terror.' Its first victim \vas a woman, 
 seventy years of age, Alice Lisle, a widow. She 
 was beheaded for giving food and lodging to a flying 
 rebel, on whom she had mercy when she saw how 
 distressed he was." Another woman, Elizabeth 
 Gaunt, was burned to death for the same offence, 
 while many were whipped, half naked, from town to 
 town, for the purpose. of showing the people what
 
 234 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 came of going against the king. The people of 
 Windsor scowled when this cruel judge rode into the 
 castle, and hated the thought that he was not only 
 to be their recorder, but that he was also their 
 near neighbour, since he lived at Bulstrode, only six 
 miles away. They thought of the terrible sentences 
 he would pass for the smallest ofifences in Windsor. 
 When he rode through the castle gates to see the 
 king and tell him what he had done to the rebels, 
 he was a rich man because of the pardons he had 
 sold to those who would have been hung or burnt. 
 He boasted that he had " hanged more for high 
 treason than all the judges of England since William 
 the Conqueror." Yet when he told his story to 
 the king he received the seal which appointed him 
 Lord Chancellor of England. It was the highest 
 honour the king could give him. 
 
 In this reign the old market-house was in such 
 bad repair that it was pulled down and the materials 
 sold, and Sir Christopher Wren finished building the 
 Town, or Guildhall, with the money so received, a 
 large amount from the Corporation, and some sub- 
 scriptions which amounted to 680. There is a 
 story told as to the way in which Wren had some 
 fun at the expense of some of the town councillors 
 who had a fear that without pillars underneath the 
 floor, the great hall would fall when the place was 
 filled with people. Wren put up some pillars, but 
 not one of them came within reach of the floor by 
 an inch or two. There was thus a space left 
 between, but the nervous ones, not knowing the 
 trick that had been played on them, were perfectly
 
 
 
 THE TOWN' HALL: PRESENT DAY. 
 
 (Showing T.M. King Ediuxrd VI t. and Queen Alexandra riding through, 
 the town).
 
 236 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 content. Years after, when the cement which hid 
 the space from the people's eyes had worn away, it 
 was known what the architect had done. 
 
 Windsor, and indeed the whole nation, was 
 amazed when the king, who was a Catholic, invited 
 the Pope to send his nuncio, or ambassador, to 
 Windsor Castle, to talk over the restoration of the 
 Roman Catholic religion in England. D'Adda, 
 the nuncio, who received a public reception in 
 Windsor by the king, on July 3rd, 1687, came in 
 great pomp. 
 
 There was discontent everywhere, and the Duke 
 of Somerset, who was First Lord of the Bed- 
 chamber, refused to formally introduce the nuncio to 
 the king, although it was a part of his duty to do so. 
 James was enraged when it was said by the duke that 
 the coming of the nuncio was contrary to the law. 
 
 " Do you not know that I am above the law r " 
 cried the king. 
 
 " You may be, your Majesty, but I am not," said 
 the duke. 
 
 In spite of this the king persisted, and the nuncio 
 came. Such a scene had not been witnessed in 
 England for 150 years. Macaulay says that 
 multitudes flocked to the little town. "The visitors 
 were so numerous that there was neither food nor 
 lodging for them, and many persons of quality sat 
 the whole day in their carriages, waiting for the 
 exhibition. At length, late in the afternoon, the 
 knight-marshal's men appeared on horseback ; then 
 came a long train of running footmen, and then in 
 a royal coach was seen Adda, robed in purple,
 
 RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 237 
 
 with a brilliant cross on his breast. He was 
 followed by the equipages of the principal courtiers 
 and ministers of state." 
 
 It was a fatal step for the king to take. He 
 made the people of England angry, since so vast a 
 majority of them were Protestant, and were resolved 
 that Romanism must not become the religion of the 
 kingdom again. Going on from step to step, just as 
 his father had done, James roused the people to so 
 much anger, that they said he should no more be 
 king. They sent over an invitation to William, 
 Prince of Orange, to come to England and take the 
 throne. William was the king's son-in-law, having 
 married the Pi incess Mary, the: daughter of James. 
 William came. On the 5th of November, 1688, he 
 landed at Torbay, and an army gathered about him 
 instantly. It grew and grew as he moved through 
 the country, and the king, seeing that his own 
 army and his own children had deserted him, fled. 
 He threw the great Seal of England into the 
 Thames, and hurried out of the country by night, 
 going down the Thames in a ship which his friends 
 had waiting for him. 
 
 Thus came the Great Revolution of 1688. Leav- 
 ing Torbay, the Prince of Orange had marched 
 through Sherbourne and Salisbury. On the ijth of 
 Nove'mber he was in Hungerford, and began to march 
 through Berkshire, after a long halt in that town, 
 hoping to hear that James had fled, since the king's 
 flight would save bloodshed. There was some fight- 
 ing near Reading, a mere skirmish, and then William 
 went to Abingdon. After that he marched along
 
 238 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 the river bank to Wallingford and Henley. From 
 thence he went to Windsor. The prince stopped his 
 march at Windsor, and there held a council of the 
 great men of the kingdom. William was not as 
 yet king, for there were many things to settle 
 before that could be ; things to be done that would 
 safeguard the liberties of the people of England. 
 But at last all was ready, and James having fled, 
 William was proclaimed king, and his wife the 
 queen, the two to reign together. 
 
 Beyond that important stay in the castle, when 
 the Revolution was brought to a successful ending, 
 Windsor did not play any great part in the king's 
 reign. Things happened of no great importance, 
 but interesting, however. We hear that in 1693, his 
 Majesty granted ^50 a year to the mayor and 
 churchwardens of Windsor, to aid the church and 
 the poor people of Windsor parish. The money 
 was payable out of the rents of a certain district. 
 But the grant was one thing, while the payment was 
 quite another, for in 1698 the money was three 
 years in arrear. 
 
 William's alterations in Windsor Castle amounted 
 to very little, although Sir Christopher Wren was 
 asked to prepare plans for great things. They were 
 never carried out, " fortunately," says Sir Richard 
 Holmes. As it was, " much was done in the Little 
 or Home Park, where the whole circuit towards 
 Datchet was enclosed by a brick wall, traces of 
 which can still be seen near the Victoria Bridge. 
 This did away with the Datchet Mead, immortalised 
 by Shakespeare, and with the old racecourse where,
 
 RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION. 239 
 
 as may be seen in an old print, Charles II. was wont 
 to exercise his running horses." 
 
 Meanwhile, Windsor went on its usual way, 
 doing its business, but wishing that the king and 
 queen would come to the castle oftener. The 
 corporation was very jealous of its dignity at the 
 time, and we hear how a man named William 
 Herring, junior, was heavily fined for speaking dis- 
 respectfully of the corporation. The fine was twenty 
 nobles, and from the fact that a noble was worth six 
 shillings and eightpence, it will be seen that the 
 corporation held its dignity at a pretty high figure.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 WHEN ANNE WAS QUEEN. 
 
 WILLIAM did not care much for Windsor, his 
 thoughts being centred on Hampton Court, on 
 which he spent his money freely. But Anne loved 
 Windsor greatly, and spent nearly all the summer 
 months there. Even before she was queen she lived 
 in a house on the Castle Hill, near to the spot where 
 the present royal stables stand. When she came to 
 the throne she began to spend money freely on the 
 great castle, and would have spent more if she could 
 have afforded it. As it was she spent ^40,000 in 
 repairs, had the double steps made in the centre of 
 the East Terrace, and planned a garden there. She 
 also had the Grand Staircase painted by Sir James 
 Thornhill, and the carriage road made through the 
 Long Walk, a bridge built across the river at 
 Datchet, and the " Queen Anne's Walk" planted in 
 1707. 
 
 The queen never liked London. The beauty of 
 the great park, the shining river, and the meadows, 
 bounded by the distant Chiltern Hills, charmed her, 
 and she never tired of them. It was while she was
 
 WHEN ANNE WAS QUEEN. 241 
 
 sitting with the Duchess of Marlborough in a little 
 alcove in what is now the royal library, that a 
 horseman rode up to the castle in hot haste. Men 
 saw as he rode through the town that he came with 
 great news, for his horse was covered with foam. 
 The tired creature staggered with fatigue when the 
 dust-covered rider slipped out of the saddle. 
 
 " Where is the Duchess of Marlborough ? " he 
 cried. 
 
 When he was shown into the queen's presence, in 
 what is now known as "Queen Anne's Closet, he 
 drew from his bosom a crumpled piece of paper, 
 torn roughly from the Duke of Marlborough's 
 pocket-book. On it were pencilled a few words. 
 But they were words which spoke of one of the 
 most famous victories the English army ever won. 
 The great general wasted no words in telling of the 
 battle of Blenheim on the banks of the Danube. 
 The note ran : 
 
 "Aug. 13, 1704. 
 
 " I have not time to say more, but to beg you will 
 give my duty to the Queen, and let her know that 
 her army has had a glorious victory. M. Tallard 
 and two other generals are in my coach, and I am 
 following the rest. The bearer, my aide-de-camp, 
 will give her an account of what has passed. I shall 
 do it, in a day or two, by another, more at large. 
 
 " MARLBOROUGII." 
 
 It was truly a magnificent victory. The English 
 were fighting side by side with the troops of the
 
 242 THE STORY Of ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 German Emperor against the French, in what was 
 called the " War of the Spanish Succession." The 
 battle began at one o'clock in the afternoon. When 
 it ended at night the enemy was so beaten that out 
 of the fifty-six thousand that went into the fight, forty 
 thousand were dead or taken prisoners, to say nothing 
 of those who were drowned in the Danube in the 
 hurried retreat. Among the prisoners were the great 
 French general, Marshal Tallard, and more than a 
 hundred of his officers. It was the proud boast of 
 Englishmen that Marlborough never besieged a 
 fortress that he did not take, nor fight a battle 
 which he did not win. 
 
 A fac-simile of the letter Marlborough wrote is 
 now hung on the wall of the little room in which 
 the queen and the duchess sat when the messenger 
 brought the news. In the guard-room of the castle 
 hangs a little flag above the bust of Marlborough, 
 emblazoned with the lilies of France. At first it 
 was placed in Queen Anne's Closet, but George IV. 
 had it removed to the guard-room, where it is seen 
 by the thousands of visitors who come to the 
 castle. 
 
 Opposite it is another bust, of Wellington, the 
 victor of Waterloo, and a flag over it in like manner. 
 A new flag is brought to be placed over the busts 
 every year to replace the old one. The flags must 
 be brought to the castle and placed in position on 
 the anniversary of the various battles ; if this were 
 not done, the great estates which were given to each 
 of the two victorious generals by the nation, would 
 pass out of the hands of the family.
 
 WHEN ANNE WAS QUEEN. 243 
 
 The victory of Blenheim made such an impression 
 on the queen that she had her garden at the castle 
 laid out with trees to represent the famous battle- 
 field, so that she had the reminder of it every day, 
 when she looked out of the palace windows. 
 
 One other event must be mentioned in connection 
 with Anne's reign. This was the visit of Charles 
 III., King of Spain, in 1703. He arrived at Spit- 
 head, and was received with royal honours, but 
 before landing, a messenger stepped on board the 
 ship to say that her Majesty wished to see him at 
 Windsor, A stately journey was taken thither, and 
 within the castle he was received by the queen at 
 the head of the Grand Staircase. It was a short 
 but memorable visit so far as court splendour was 
 concerned, and much was made of it at the time. It 
 was a friendly visit, such as takes place often in 
 these days, when some one of the monarchs comes 
 to this country.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 WINDSOR UNDER THE EARLY HANOVERIANS. 
 
 THE first two Georges did not much care for 
 Windsor, if we are to judge from the rarity of 
 their visits to the famous castle on the Thames. 
 There were times when, in a sense, they were com- 
 pelled to come, as when the Order of the Garter 
 called for their attention. They loved Hampton 
 Court more, and it was a trouble to them to come 
 as far as Windsor, even in the summer-time, when 
 the country round is so full of beauty, and the 
 park and forest have so many charms. 
 
 So far as great events were concerned Windsor 
 was quiet for years. The everyday life went on, but 
 when royalty came down on rare occasions there was 
 a general bustle on the part of the people to make 
 the town more tidy. If the truth must be told the 
 Windsor people were slipshod in their habits when 
 the court was away. What we have already read 
 as to the dirty streets held good in the days of the 
 Georges. The pigs still strayed about in the streets, 
 and people flung out-of-doors things which made the 
 air foul, and bred disease. The corporation had to 
 pass by-laws compelling the inhabitants to keep the 
 town more tidy, since such a state of things was a
 
 246 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 disgrace to the town. Shopkeepers and house- 
 dwellers in the royal borough had to shovel and 
 brush up all dirt, dust, and other annoyances on 
 Saturday afternoon, and again they were told that 
 they would be fined if they tossed out stinking fish, 
 or rotten vegetables into the street, or made dung- 
 hills there. Every night, also, the householders had 
 to hang out candles at their doors, to light the street. 
 The people were slow at first to obey the by-laws, 
 but the mayor put on some heavy fines, and things 
 grew better. 
 
 The Windsor of those days was very different 
 from what it is to-day. The people of this twentieth 
 century are different in their habits, and are in every 
 way more sober and law-abiding. In the days of 
 the Georges the corporation rarely did any busi- 
 ness at the council meeting without going at the 
 end of it to the White Hart or the Garter for dinner 
 or wine. And no tradesmen ever thought of doing 
 business with traders without closing the bargain by 
 going to the tavern to have some of the Windsor 
 ale which was famous in those days. The drinking 
 habits of the town were such that we constantly 
 read of money paid by the corporation to repair 
 the damage done by drunken persons to "the town- 
 hall windows, the hasps of the market-gate, and 
 other matters." 
 
 There was plenty of amusement. The inhabitants 
 of Windsor were as fond as any who could be found 
 in England of some of the cruel sports which marked 
 those olden days ; bear-baiting and even horse- 
 baiting andj bull-baiting [were often to be seen.
 
 
 S^ji 
 S^ 
 
 f/f/
 
 248 THE STOR Y OF RO YAL WINDSOR. 
 
 When May-day came Peascod Street was gay with 
 festivity. The Maypole was fixed in the wider part 
 of the street, which was half-way down, somewhere 
 near Sun Passage, and gay doings followed. Bonfires 
 blazed whenever any festivity came. When royalty 
 was coming the corporation had banquets in honour 
 of the occasion, and " beef and bacon, and veal and 
 mutton, and pullets, and a hundred other things for 
 the table" are mentioned in the town expenses book. 
 It all cost money, for at one time we read of four 
 women being paid to help the cook at one of the 
 inns for fourteen days to celebrate the arrival of the 
 prince. 
 
 The cucking-stool, or ducking-stool, as it was 
 sometimes called, had its place in Windsor in those 
 olden days. " The cucking-stool," sayl one, " was an 
 engine invented for the punishment of scolds and 
 unquiet women, by ducking them in the water, after 
 having placed them in a stool or chair fixed at the 
 end of a long pole," by which they were suddenly 
 let down into some muddy or stinking pond. 
 
 In the reign of the first George, in 1725, a school- 
 house was erected in the churchyard, large enough to 
 accommodate forty boys and thirty girls. It was 
 built with some money which was left by Theodore 
 Randue. It was built on the north side of the 
 churchyard. This building, said to have been 
 erected by Sir Christopher Wren, stands in the 
 corner of the graveyard, in St. Alban's Street. It is 
 no longer used as a school, but is the lodge of the 
 Freemasons. One part of the building is utilised at 
 the present time as a Drill Hall by the Territorials.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 WHEN " FARMER GEORGE " WAS KING. 
 
 WHEN George III. came to the throne he would 
 have nothing to do with Hampton Court. The 
 story runs that he hated the place because once he 
 had been cruelly beaten while there by his father, 
 and the court was always associated in his mind 
 with that unpleasant experience. 
 
 Windsor Castle had gone into dilapidation to a 
 shameful extent, for while money was supposed to 
 have been spent upon it, George found it decayed 
 and unfit for habitation. So much was this the 
 case that he was not able to accommodate his family 
 at the castle, and had to build a lodge on the town 
 side of the castle, where the mews now stand. The 
 cost of this new building was .44,000. 
 
 The castle must have been in a deplorable con- 
 dition when we read that in 1730 the roof of the 
 Round Tower was in danger of falling in, and that 
 in the following year the stairs were in such a bad 
 state that it was unsafe to mount them. Things 
 grew worse and worse, and in 1752 the great stones 
 were falling from the curtain of the Round Tower.
 
 250 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 Because of this the parapet wall was in danger of 
 tumbling down. 
 
 St. George's Chapel was also in a bad state. In 
 one of the old volumes of the Gentleman's 
 Magazine for 1786, a letter described what 
 someone saw who visited it in that year. The 
 writer had just visited Eton, where he found 
 everything at the college in an excellent state. 
 He came straight up to Windsor Castle and was 
 amazed. This is what he says : 
 
 "Here a new scene presented itself; an elegant 
 and neglected Gothic chapel, perhaps the first in 
 the world for beauty and splendour, but dirty and 
 disregarded to such a degree as to become a 
 nuisance to the eye, and a reproach to the sextons, 
 who, I am told, receive daily, handsome donations 
 for showing it, yet are regardless to the greatest 
 degree of shame, not so much as dusting the 
 monuments, or washing the chapel. An elegant 
 monument of the Beaufort family is at this moment 
 tumbling into ruins ; some of the principal figures 
 thereon being supported by common cords or 
 ropes." 
 
 The writer said a great deal more, but ended by 
 declaring that the pavement of this royal chapel would 
 be disgraceful to a barn. The chapel was repaired 
 in 1790, was re-paved, and a new altar screen, an 
 organ loft, and an organ were provided, the carving 
 renewed, and some new stalls put in where 
 necessary. 
 
 Whenever he was in Windsor, George III. lived 
 more like a country gentleman than a king, and since
 
 252 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 he ploughed some of the land in the Great Park, and 
 made a farmstead there, people affectionately called 
 him " Farmer George." He took a personal interest 
 in this sort of work, and planned out many farms 
 which were dealt with after the Norfolk and Dutch 
 methods of husbandry. Hence the establishment of 
 the Norfolk and Flemish Farms. 
 
 Just as the castle had become a discredit to the 
 nation, so the town itself seems to have become a 
 discredit to the corporation and people of Windsor. 
 It was necessary, in the ninth year of the king's 
 reign to pass an Act of Parliament for the better 
 paving, cleaning, lighting, and watching of the 
 streets and lanes of Windsor, and for putting an 
 end to the intolerable nuisances and annoyances 
 there. The Act permitted the corporation to pay 
 the wages of six able-bodied men to serve as 
 watchmen and constables, and put an end to 
 obstructions in the streets, and call on their owners 
 to keep their pigs in their styes. Those pigs seem 
 always to have been a trouble, but this piece of 
 legislation stopped the nuisance. 
 
 Many things show that Windsor was not the most 
 orderly place in England. In 1780 a great riot 
 happened at Windsor. The militia quartered in the 
 town and the people fought savagely, and the 
 fight could not be stopped until the cavalry were 
 called out. 
 
 The king was greatly annoyed to find that the 
 magnificent castle had been allowed to fall into 
 such a state. He called on Mr. John Wyatt, the 
 great architect of the day, to make the castle all
 
 254 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 that it ought to be, and to suggest what he thought 
 would add to its splendour. Many thousands of 
 pounds were spent in repairs and improvements. The 
 king mentioned some of the things he wished to see 
 changed, having made architecture a study. But what 
 was chiefly done in George IH.'stime was more in the 
 way of beautifying than in great alterations. The 
 Grand Staircase was finished in the most superb style, 
 the balustrades being " composed of polished iron 
 inlaid with brass, gilt and chased," of beautiful 
 workmanship. Everything was fitted up in modern 
 style, yet all in keeping with the building. By the 
 time the king was satisfied many years had passed. 
 The library also was arranged while the alterations 
 v/ere going on, and some valuable paintings were 
 brought to the castle from Hampton Court and 
 elsewhere. 
 
 It was in George's reign that the old custom of 
 beating the parish bounds was revived. This 
 practice had been dropped for many a long year, 
 but in 1801 the mayor and corporation began the 
 custom afresh. The idea was to go round the 
 boundaries, and halt at certain places to " Give 
 thanks to God for His great benefits, and for the 
 increase and abundance of His fruits upon the earth." 
 During this walk round the boundaries the vicar was 
 to pronounce the customary curses, but chiefly this : 
 " Cursed is he that removeth his neighbour's land- 
 mark." 
 
 The ceremony began by the assembling of the 
 vicar and churchwardens at the Guildhall where the 
 mayor and corporation were waiting for them.

 
 256 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 There they had wine, bread and cheese, and then 
 set forth, joined by the charity children and such 
 of the townspeople as chose to go with them. This 
 was on the loth of May, 1801, and the first place 
 of call having been reached, the first curse came 
 from the vicar's lips. This halt was made at a 
 house at the bottom of Peascod Street. The 
 proceedings were strange. When some of the boys 
 had entered the parlour by the window, a collect 
 was read, and a psalm sung. After that Mrs. Bryer, 
 the tenant, who knew of their coming, sent wine to 
 those who were outside. The whole company then 
 went through the house, into the garden, scrambled 
 over the palings, went along the ditch, and after 
 that moved on from point to point. At every halt- 
 ing place a collect was read, a psalm was sung, and 
 wine was sent out as before. 
 
 At the riverside the company got into punts, and 
 pulling across the stream, floated down close by the 
 Eton side to Tangier's Creek, landed on the Ait, 
 went through the same ceremony, and passed on 
 after having cut a bound mark in the ground. After 
 that the punts went down the river to Datchet Bridge, 
 the company always- taking wine at the various 
 halting places, together with rolls and butter. Going 
 from point to point they came at last to Frogmore 
 House, where the halt was a long one. For here an 
 " elegant dinner was provided," and Major Price did 
 the honours of the table. The dinner was a liberal 
 one, consisting of roast beef and plum pudding, with 
 hams, veal, fowls, and other appetising dishes. Then 
 came the drinking of the king's health, and cheers
 
 258 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 followed, three times three. When the wine came 
 on the table, the people who had been following the 
 procession were served with what was left, and the 
 charity children also had a good meal on the lawn. 
 Some humorous songs were sung, and the company 
 proceeded on their way again. They went, with 
 music playing, and colours flying, to the market- 
 place. 
 
 The bounds were not all beaten in one day, for 
 the ceremony lasted three whole days. At the end 
 of all the walking and feasting a barrel of Windsor 
 ale was tapped at the market-house, for the people, 
 " Who loudly huzza'd and finished the business." 
 The idea of beating the bounds in this fashion was 
 to make a public claim to what land belonged to the 
 town, as well as to keep the privileges which the 
 charters had granted. It was then declared that 
 anyone who violated the privileges should be flogged 
 at the stocks, and then he should be fastened in an 
 iron cage to be the laughing-stock of all who passed 
 by. 
 
 The old king was very popular in Windsor, and 
 when the fiftieth year of his reign was completed, 
 the bachelors of the town set up an obelisk in 
 Bachelors' Acre, " As a tribute of their gratitude for 
 the particular esteem he had on all occasions 
 manifested for their native town." 
 
 Yet, in the midst of all this pleasant home life, 
 where the king and queen were the central figures of 
 Windsor, while the nation was at war with almost 
 the whole world, and threatened with ruin because 
 of her many enemies, a great trouble came on King
 
 WHEN " FARMER GEORGE" WAS KING. 259 
 
 George. He became insane for a time, and his son 
 had to take up the duties of the monarch, and rule 
 as prince regent. It was necessary to remove the old 
 king to a quiet place. With a great deal of trouble 
 he was induced to leave Windsor, and go to Kew. 
 In all the story of the royal borough nothing seems 
 so sad as this departure of an old man whom 
 everyone loved for his simplicity and honesty, and 
 his quiet, manly, and good, and gentle life. It is 
 said that " almost all Windsor was collected round 
 the rails to witness the mournful spectacle of his 
 departure, which left them in the deepest despond- 
 ence, with scarce a ray of hope ever to see him 
 again." 
 
 But one day he came back on horseback, once 
 more well. He had a reception that told of the joy 
 the people had on seeing him again. The bells rang 
 loudly, and the day became one of holiday.
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 WINDSOR'S LATER GLORIES. 
 
 GEORGE IV. did great things for Windsor Castle, 
 for the whole building underwent a change. His 
 father had begun the work of restoration, and the 
 new king, when he took up his residence in the 
 castle, in 1823, determined, as Sir Richard Holmes 
 says, on a " thorough renewal of the whole fabric, 
 which by long neglect and imperfect repairs in 
 former reigns had become not only inconvenient as 
 a royal residence, but was absolutely dangerous, 
 roofs, floors, and foundations being rotten and 
 decayed." 
 
 Some went so far as to advise the king to pull 
 the castle down altogether, and build another in its 
 place. But Wyatt prepared plans which greatly 
 pleased the king. Parliament made a grant of 
 300,000 to meet the cost. This did not prove 
 enough by any means. By the time William IV. 
 had done all that was contemplated, 771,000 was 
 the grant made, to say nothing of 281,000 for 
 furniture more than a million pounds. 
 
 Wyatt, who was knighted as Sir Jeffry Wyattville
 
 It'inJicr Castle: I'l'm'/rffm the Lil'i'an- ll'iiMo
 
 262 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 having the means put into his hands to do the work 
 as splendidly as money could make it, converted the 
 castle into the magnificent palace we find it to-day, 
 save for a few improvements made by Queen 
 Victoria. The entire eastern half of the castle was 
 renewed, and other parts brought into harmony 
 with it. 
 
 Holmes tells us of the part which William IV. 
 took in this work of transforming a ruined building 
 into the finest in the world. Entering what was 
 then the room where the pictures of some beautiful 
 women were hanging, he said, "I am the only 
 sovereign in Europe without a library, and these 
 rooms shall be mine." The change was made. 
 Henry VI I. 's room and the Elizabethan Gallery 
 were set aside, and a beautiful library made, to 
 which valuable books were brought from time to 
 time, as well as drawings and miniatures of great 
 value. Much in the way of rare and costly books 
 has been added since then. 
 
 Other changes took place, not only in the castle, 
 but in the town. The parish church had to come 
 down, and was re-built as we see it to-day, while 
 the bridge over the Thames, joining Eton to 
 Windsor, and which was built of wood, and was 
 unsafe for traffic, was replaced by one of stone. 
 The Duke of York, High Steward of the borough, 
 laid the corner stone on July the loth, 1822. 
 
 From that time onwards great alterations were 
 made where changes called for them. The Round 
 Tower now has the Flag Tower added, and on it 
 floats the great banner of England when the
 
 264 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 sovereign is in residence. On all other days when 
 the monarch is absent, the Union Jack flies. The 
 houses which once stood on the castle side of 
 Thames Street, with their backs to the castle, were 
 pulled down in the days when Queen Victoria ruled, 
 and a fine pavement took their place. The old 
 public roads through the Little Park were closed, 
 the old bridge to Datchet was removed, and the 
 Victoria and Albert bridges were built. 
 
 As the castle stands to-day, it is esteemed one of 
 the most magnificent of European palaces. It is 
 described as being nearly a mile in circumference, 
 and covers more than twelve acres of land within 
 the walls. Queen Victoria, always considerate of 
 the town, did not forget the pleasures of the people 
 of Windsor, when she set aside seventy-five acres of 
 the Ho:ne Park for a recreation ground. 
 
 Queen Victoria, during her splendid reign, made 
 the castle not only her frequent home, but "the 
 great centre of court life, and the scene of many 
 historical receptions and pageants." To tell of all 
 that happened in castle and in town is altogether 
 impossible, since the royal borough became the centre 
 of so many important and historical celebrations. One 
 cannot tell of the famous personages who came from 
 all parts of the world to see the greatest monarch 
 of all time. There were exiled sovereigns among 
 them ; they had come to England to find a safe 
 home. But the most noble of them all, who had 
 active dealings with Windsor, and took a keen 
 interest in its welfare, was Albert, Prince Consort, 
 the husband of the queen, and father of our present
 
 QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE ROYAL FAMILY. 
 (Alderman Barber's Collection.)
 
 266 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 king. The whole nation was in sorrow when, after a 
 brief illness, he died in 1861. He was buried in the 
 St. George's Chapel, in the royal vault, only to rest 
 there, however, until the gorgeous mausoleum at 
 Frogmore could be built. 
 
 The Prince Consort had done many things which 
 displayed the keen interest he took in Windsor. 
 He built a riding school, and new stables were 
 erected under his direction ; also he established 
 model farms in the park, and saved from destruc- 
 tion the Fishing Temple and other places of 
 interest. 
 
 Windsor greatly prospered while Victoria was 
 queen. It was her wont when in residence in the 
 castle to set aside her royal state as far as 
 possible. There were days of pageant days when 
 the splendour of royalty seemed to dazzle the 
 spectator as when great foreign potentates came 
 to see her Majesty at Windsor ; but on ordi- 
 nary occasions she drove out almost unattended. 
 Foreigners wondered to see the mighty empress 
 riding along the country lanes, and on the public 
 highways, without any ostentation. When she died 
 the whole Empire, and not Windsor only, was over- 
 whelmed with grief. 
 
 She was laid to rest in that splendid mausoleum 
 which she had built for her dead husband and 
 herself. Few would imagine that the white marble 
 building, which stands amid firs and laurels, and 
 yews and other trees, was one of the historic 
 structures of the world, the resting-place of so 
 mighty a ruler.
 
 WINDSORS LATER GLORIES 267 
 
 When the great Queen died she was succeeded by 
 her son, who took the title of Edward VII. He 
 began his reign in 1901, with every promise of 
 splendour, and all the hopes and proud expectations 
 of the Empire were amply realised. By his supreme 
 sagacity and statesmanship the King won for himself 
 not alone the affectionate loyalty of his people, but 
 the regard of all the nations. When after a glorious 
 reign of nine years he died with a suddenness which 
 sent a shock of consternation through the world, it 
 was declared on every hand that he had won a place 
 among the greatest monarchs of all time, and had 
 made himself a lasting name as " King Edward the 
 Peacemaker." 
 
 He was succeeded on the day of his death May 
 6th, 1910 by his son, the Prince of Wales, under 
 the title of King George V. The prayers of the 
 nation are that he may experience a long and 
 glorious reign. 
 
 The story of Royal Windsor must end here, 
 although there is much to tell, were it not for 
 want of space. We have seen how from small 
 beginnings the castle about which the royal 
 borough clusters has grown to be the most famous 
 palace in the world. It is now the state residence of 
 England's King, George V. 
 
 The palace may be looked upon as the centre of 
 the Empire, and in a sense the centre of the world. 
 This much is certain, that one may walk through 
 any of the world's " stately homes " and mark their 
 beauty and grandeur, and marvel at the wealth 
 which they contain but none can vie with this
 
 268 THE STORY OF ROYAL WINDSOR. 
 
 magnificent castle on Windsor's mound. For here 
 one reads the story of a nation coming out of 
 obscurity into unequalled greatness, into the great 
 compactness of an Empire, the like of which the 
 world has never seen before. 
 
 Sons, Ltd. t Printers, The Empire Press, Norwich.
 
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