From Abbeys, Castles and Ancient Halls of England and Wales, Their Legendary Lore and Popular History, by John Timbs, re-edited, revised, and enlarged by Alexander Gunn, Volume II.; Frederick Warne and Co.; London; pp. 40-51.
Windsor, as a royal Castle and domain, has existed from the Saxon era of our history. It has also been a place of considerable resort for nearly six centuries; or from the period when Eleanor, Queen of Edward I., came hither by water, the roads being impassable for waggons, the only vehicular conveyance then in use — to our own railway times, when the journey from London occupies little more than half an hour. The picturesque beauty of the country, as well as the royal fame of the locality, have doubtless aided this enduring popularity.
The name is from Windlesofra, or Windlesbora, from the winding course of the Thames in this part.* This, however was Old Windsor, a distinct parish, where the Saxon Kings had a palace, about two miles south-east of New Windsor. Edward the Confessor occasionally kept his court here: by him it was granted to the monks of Westminster, who subsequently exchanged it with the Conqueror for Wokendom and other lands in Essex. William immediately commenced the erection of a fortress near the site of the Round Tower of the present Castle, which, from its commanding situation, was admirably adapted for a military post; and it s doubtful whether it was ever used as a residence. It is mentioned in Domesday as covering half a hide of land (30 or 50 acres). The tenures is “Allodial,” i.e., being held by the Sovereign, subject to no chief lord, and therefore not strictly in “fee.” Henry I. enlarged the Castle in 1109, and added a chapel; and in the following year he formally removed from the old Saxon palace to the new Castle, and there solemnized the feast of Whitsuntide.
Edward I. and his Queen, Eleanor, often visited the fortress-palace, which frequently became the scene of chivalric spectacle; and in the sixth year of the King’s reign a grand tournament was held in the park by 38 knightly competitors.
41In the treaty terminating the Civil War between King Stephen and Henry, Duke of Normandy (afterwards Henry II.), by which the former gives assurance to his successors of the Castles and strengths which he holds in England, Windsor appears as second in importance only to the Tower of London. That it was at this time, therefore, a stronghold of strength, there can be but little doubt. In the treaty it is coupled with the Tower, and described as the Mota de Windsor. A few fragments of Norman architecture were brought to light during the excavations made in our time, by Sir Jeffrey Wyatville.
King John lay at Windsor during the conferences at Runnymede. Henry III. made considerable alterations and enlargements in the Lower Ward, and added a chapel 70 feet long and 28 feet high, of which “the roof was of wood, lined and painted like stone, and covered with lead.” This Chapel would appear to have stood where the Tomb-house stands. But Windsor Castle owes all its glory to Edward III.; for it had been but little more than a rude fortress, with an adjacent chapel, till Edward of Windsor (it was his native place) gave it grandeur, extent, and durability. “The two Higher Wards” were built with the ransoms of the captive Kings; the Upper Ward with the French King’s (John), the Middle Ward, or Keep, with the Scotch King’s (David) ransom. Edward’s architect was William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester. Edward began, it would appear, with the Round Tower in 1315, when he was in his 18th year. Wykeham built a Castle on the site for its royal owner, worthy of Edward, of Philippa, his queen, and of his warlike son, the hero of Poictiers.
Froissart’s story of Edward III. and the Countess of Salisbury, tells of the unhallowed love of the King, and the constancy of the noble lady, when she welcomed him in the Castle that she had been bravely defending against her enemies! “As soon the lady knew of the king’s coming, she set open the gates, and came out so richly beseen that ever man marvelled of her beauty, and could not cease to regard her nobleness with her great beauty, and the gracious words and countenance she made. When she came to the King, she kneeled down to the earth, thanking him of his succours, and so led him into the Castle, to make him cheer and honour as she that could right do it. Every man regarded her marvellously; the King himself could not withhold his regarding of her, for he thought that he never saw before so noble nor so fair a lady: he was stricken therewith to the heart, with a sparkle of fine love that endured long after; he thought no lady in the world so worthy to be loved as she. Thus they entered into the Castle hand-in-hand; the lady led him first into the hall, and after into the chamber, 42 nobly apparelled. The King regarded so the lady that she was abashed. At last he went to a window to rest, and so fell in a great stud. The lady went about to make cheer to the lords and knights that were there, and commanded to dress the hall for dinner. When she had all devised and commanded, then she came to the King with a merry cheer, who was then in a great study, and she said, ‘Dear sir, why do ye study so for? Your grace not displeased, it appertaineth not to you so to do; rather ye should make good cheer and be joyful, seeing ye have chased away your enemies, who durst not abide you: let other men study for the remnant.’ Then the King said, ‘Ah, dear lady, know for truth that since I entered into the Castle there is a study come into my mind, so that I cannot choose but to muse, nor I cannot tell what shall fall thereof: put it out of my heart I cannot.’ ‘Ah, sir,’ quoth the lady, ‘ye ought always to make good cheer to comfort therewith your people. God hath abided you so in your business, and hath given you so great graces, that ye be the most doubted (feared) and honoured prince in all Christendom; and if the King of Scots have done you any despite or damage, ye may well-amend it when it shall please you, as ye have done divers times er (ere) this. Sir, leave your musing, and come into the hall, if it please you; your dinner is all ready.’ ‘Ah, fair lady,’ quoth the King, ‘other things lieth at my heart that ye know not of: but surely the sweet behaving, the perfect wisdom, the good grace, nobleness, and excellent beauty that I see in you, hat so surprised my heart, that I cannot but love you, and without your love I am but dead.’ Then the lady said, ‘Ah! right noble prince, for God’s sake mock nor tempt me not. I cannot believe that it is true that ye say, or that so noble a prince as ye be would think to dishonour me, and my lord, my husband, who is so valiant a knight, and hath done your grace so good service, and as yet lieth in prison for your quarrel. Certainly, sir, ye should in this case have but a small praise, and nothing the better thereby. I had never as yet such a thought in my heart, nor, I trust in God, never shall have for no man living. If I had any such intention, your grace ought not only to blame me, but also to punish my body, yea, and by true justice to be dismembered.’ Herewith the lady departed from the King, and went into the hall to haste the dinner. When she returned again to the King, and brought some of his knights with her, and said, ‘Sir, if it please you to come into the hall, your knights abideth for you to wash; ye have been too long fasting.’ Then the King went into the hall and washed, and sat down among his lords and lady also. The King ate little; he sat still musing, and, as he durst, he cast his eyes upon the lady. Of his sadness his 43 knights had marvel, for he was not accustomed so to be; some thought it was because the Scots were escaped from him. All that day the King tarried there, and wist not what to do: sometime he imagined that truth and honour defended him to set his heart in such a case, to dishonour such a lady and such a knight as her husband was, who had always well and truly served him; on the other part, love so constrained him that the power thereof surmounted honour and truth. Thus the King debated to himself all that day and all that night: in the morning he arose, and dislodged all his host, and drew after the Scots to chase them out of his realm. Then he took leave of the lady, saying, ‘My dear lady, to God I commend you till I return again, requiring you to advise you otherwise than ye have said to me.’ ‘Noble prince,’ quoth the lady, ‘God the Father glorious, be your conduct, and put you out of all villain thoughts. Sir, I am, and ever shall be, ready to do you pure service to your honour and to mine.’ Therewith the King departed all abashed.’
To carry on the legend, it may be believed that the King subdued his passions, and afterwards met the noble woman in all honour and courtesy; then we may understand the motto of the Garter — “Evil he to him that evil thinks.”
Such is the legend of the old chronicler that has been long connected with the Institution of the Order of the Garter — a legend of virtue subduing passion, and therefore not unfit to be associated with the honour and self-denial of chivalry. Touching it is to read that the “fresh beauty and goodly demeanour” of the lady of Salisbury was ever in Edward’s remembrance; but that at a great feast in London, “all ladies and damsels were freshly beseen, according to their degrees, except Alice, Countess of Salisbury, for she went as simply as she might, to the intent that the King should not set his regards on her.”
Henry VI. was born at Windsor; but “Holy Henry” did little for his native place beyond adding “a distant prospect of Eton College” to the fine natural view of the lofty keep. To Edward IV. we owe St. George’s Chapel as we now see it; to Henry VII. the adjoining Tomb-house; and to Henry VIII. the Gateway still standing, with his arms upon it, at the foot of the Lower Ward.
When the Protector Somerset was outnumbered by the conspirators leagued against him, he, for his own safety’s sake, hurried the boy-king, Edward VI. from Hampton Court, in the middle of the night, to the stronghold of Windsor Castle, where he was heard to say, “Methinks I am in prison: here be no galleries nor no gardens to walk in.” A gallery was added by Elizabeth: it ran east and west along the 44 North Terrace, between “the Privy Lodgings,” and “the Deanes Tarras, or Grene Walk.” After the Restoration, the fortress-like character of the Castle was reduced to the taste of a French palace; and thus it mostly remained until, in 1824, King George IV. began a thorough restoration of the Castle, with the directing taste of Sir Jeffrey Wyatville, which eventually cost a million and a half of money.
The great Gateways without the Castle are King Henry VIII.’s, St. George’s, and King George IV.’s; and one within, called the Norman, or Queen Elizabeth’s Gate. The Round Tower, or Keep, was built for the assembling of a fraternity of knights who should be together on a footing of equality, as the knights sat in romance at the Round Table of King Arthur, which King Edward designed to revive at a solemn festival annually; but in this he was thwarted by the jealousy of Philip de Valois, King of France. This induced King Edward to establish the memorable Order of the Garter. For the construction of the famous Round Table, fifty-two oaks were taken from the woods of the Prior of Merton, near Reading, for which he was paid 26l. 13s. 4d.
When King Edward III. held the great feast of St. George at Windsor, “there was a noble company of earls, barons, ladies and damsels, knights and squires, and great triumph, justing, and tournays.” of his unhappy grandson, Froissart thus describes the last pageants: “King Richard caused a joust to be cried and published throughout his realm, to Scotland, to be at Windsor, of forty knights and forty squires, against all comers, and they to be apparelled in green with a white falcon, and the Queen to be there, well accompanied with ladies and damsels. This feast was thus holden, the Queen being there in great nobleness, but here were but few lords or noblemen, for more than two parts of the lords and knights, and other of the realm of England, had the King in such hatred, what for the banishing of the Earl of Derby and the injuries that he had done to his children, and for the death of the Duke of Gloucester, who was slain in the Castle of Calais, and for the death of the Earl of Arundel, who was beheaded at London; the kindred of these lords came not to this feast, nor but few other.”
The Round Tower stands on an artificial mound, surrounded by a deep fosse, or dry ditch, now a sunk garden. “the compass of the Tower,” says Stow, “is one hundred and fifty paces.” Wyatville added thirty-three feet to the Tower, excusive of the Flag Tower, giving an elevation of twenty-five feet more.
The interior is approached by a covered flight of one hundred steps; a second flight leads to the battlements of the proud Keep, from which 45 twelve counties may be seen. The Prince of Wales is Constable of this Tower, and indeed of Windsor Castle.
This fine old Keep was the prison of the Castle from the reign of Richard III. to the Restoration in 1660.
The first great prisoner of note confined here was the poet-king of Scotland, James I., who, in the tenth year of his age, on his way to France to complete his education, was taken prisoner by the English, and confined by King Henry IV., first at Pevensey, in Sussex, and then at Windsor. The period of his imprisonment was nineteen years. The romantic love of King James for the beautiful Jane Beaufort, daughter of the Duke of Somerset, is beautifully told in The King’s Quhair, a poem of the King’s own composing. The Tower, he informs us, wherein he was confined, looked over “a garden faire,” in there was
“ Ane herbere green, with wandis long and small
Railed about, and so with treis set
Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet,
That life was none, walkying there forebye,
That might within scarce any wight espye.
* * * * * *
And on the smalle greene iwis issat
The little sweete nightingale, and sung
So loud and clear the hymnis consecrate
Of lovis use, now soft, now loud among,
That all the gardens and the wallis rung
Right of their song ——————
* * * * * *
And therewith cast I down mine eye again,
Whereas I saw walking under the tower,
Full secretly new comyn her to pleyne,
The fairest and the frest younge flower
That ever I saw (me thought) before that hour :
For which sudden abate anon assert
The blood of all my body to my heart. ”
How beautifully he describes the Lady Jane Beaufort:
“ In her was youth, beauty with humble port,
Bounty, richess, and womanly feature,
God better wote than my pen can report”;
Wisdom, largess, estate and cunning lure,
In every poynt so guided her mesure
In word, in deed, in shape in countenance,
That Nature might no more her child advance. ”
The Lady Jane became the wife of the poet-king, and they lived long in mutual love and sincere affection.
The next great prisoner of note at Windsor was Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the last victim brought to the block by King Henry VIII. Here Surrey felt “the sacred rage of song,” and his 46 “childish years” were passed pleasantly; but the latter portion of his too short life was spent in imprisonment. He had the King’s son for his companion — ill-exchanged for the warder and the lieutenant, the gaoler and his man; which exchange he thus felt and sung :
“ So cruel prison how could betide, alas”!
As proud Windsor”?””Where I, in lust and joy,
With a king’s son my childish years did pass,
In greater feast than Priam’s son of Troy :
Where each sweet place returns a taste full sowr !
The large green courts, where we were wont to rove,
With eyes upcast unto the Maiden’s Tower,
And easy sighs such as folks draw in love :
The stately seats, the ladies bright of hue,
The dances short, long tales of great delight,
With words and looks that tigers could but rue,
When each of us did plead the other’s right :
The palm-play, where, desported for the game,
With dazed eyes, oft we by gleams of love
Have missed the ball, and got sight of our dame,
To bait her eyes, which kept the leads above ;
The gravelled ground, with sleeves tied on the helm,
On foaming horse, with swords and friendly hearts ;
The secret groves, which oft we made resound
To pleasant plaint and of our ladies praise ;
Recording oft what grace each one had found,
What hope of speed, what dread of long delays.
The wild forest, the clothed holts with green,
With reins avail’d, and swiftly breathed horse,
With cry of hounds, and merry blasts between,
When we did chase the fearful hart of force.
The pleasant dreams, the quiet bed of rest ;
The secret thoughts, imparted with such trust ;
The wanton talk, the divers change of play ;
The friendship sworn, each promise kept so just,
Wherewith we past the winter nights away.
. . . And with this thought the blood forsakes the face,
And tears berain my cheeks of deadly hue. ”
He calls for the noble companion of his boyhood, but Richmond was no more. How touching is his plaint :
“ Thus I alone, where all my freedom grew,
In prison pine, with bondage and restraint ;
And with remembrance of the greater grief,
To banish the less, I find my chief relief. ”
The walls of the prison house bear names, and dates, and badges, and even the cause of the captivity here of other prisoners. “From this Tower,” says Stow, “when ye wethar is cleare, may easily be descryed Poll’s steple.” This was the steeple of old St. Paul’s. The dome and lantern of the new Cathedral may be descried in clear weather.
Henry VIII. often resided at the Castle, and held his Court there. 47 The Tomb-house east of St. George’s Chapel, was built by Henry VII. for his own remains, but he erected a more stately tomb for himself at Westminster; and Henry VIII. granted his father’s first mausoleum to Cardinal Wolsey, who commenced his own tomb within it, employing a Florentine sculptor on brazen columns and brazen candlesticks; after Wolsey’s fall, that which remained in 1646 of the ornaments of this tomb was sold for 600l. as defaced brass. James II. converted the tomb-house into a Romish chapel, which was defaced by a Protestant rabble. In 1742 it was appropriated as a free school-house. Next George III. converted it into a tomb-house for himself and his descendants. It has since been vaulted in stone, inlaid with mosaic work (the finest modern work extant), and the windows filled with stained glass, — as a sepulchral chapel in memory of the late Prince Consort.
The west wall is covered with mosaic pictures of the sovereigns, churchmen, and architects more intimately connected with the Castle and its ancient and Royal Chapel of St. George. Here are the portraits of Henry III., Edward III., Edward IV., Henry VI., Henry VII., and Henry VIII. Beneath are pictures of Wolsey, Beauchamp, and William of Wykeham, in enamel mosaics. On the north side the windows are filled with portraits of German princes, ancestors of his Royal Highness the Prince Consort.
Queen Elizabeth first caused the terraces to be formed, and annexed the portion of the Castle built by Henry VII. to that designed by herself, and called Queen Elizabeth’s Gallery; the state beds, “shining with gold and silver,” were her additions. In the Civil War the castle was mercilessly plundered, until Cromwell stopped the spoliation. Charles II. made it his summer residence. In Prince Rupert’s constableship, the Keep was restored: here, says Mr. Eliot Warburton, he established a seclusion for himself, which he soon furnished after his own peculiar taste. In one set of apartments, forges, laboratory instruments, retorts, and crucibles, with all sorts of metals, fluids, and crude ores, lay strewed in the luxurious confusion of a bachelor’s domain; in other rooms, armour and arms of all sorts, from that which had blunted the Damascus blade of the Holy War to those which had lately clashed at Marson Moor and Naseby. In another was a library stored with strange books, a list of which may be seen in the Harleian Miscellany. In 1670, Evelyn described the Castle as “exceedingly ragged and ruinous.” Wren spoiled the exterior, but added Star Buildings, 17 state-rooms and grand staircase. Gibbons was much employed, and Verrio painted the ceilings, to be satirized by Pope and Walpole. Thus the Castle mostly remained until our time.
48There are three divisions in the palatial part of Windsor Castle. 1. The Queen’s Private Apartments, looking to the east. 2. The State Apartments, to the north. 3. The Visitors’ Apartments, to the south. We shall not be expected to describe the relative position and magnitude of the buildings and towers composing the Castle. It has been principally enlarged within the quadrangle, on the exterior facing the north terrace, to which the Brunswick Tower has been added; and by converting what were two open courts, into the State Staircase and the Waterloo Galley. The corridor, a general communication along the whole extent of the Private Apartments, is an adaptation of the old French boiserie of the age of Louis XV. The south and east sides of the quadrangle contain upwards of 369 rooms.
It is gratifying to add, that as the attractiveness of the Castle has been increased, it has been the desire of our excellent Sovereign that all classes of her subjects should have free access to the State Apartments of this truly majestic abode.
Southward of Windsor Castle lies the Great Park, a part of Windsor Forest, which, in the reign of Queen Anne, was cut off from the Castle by the intervening private property; and it was, therefore, determined to busy as much land as might be required to complete an avenue from the Castle to the Forest. This is the present Long Walk, generally considered the finest thing of the kind in Europe. It is a perfectly straight line, above three miles in length, running from the principal entrance to the Castle to the top of a commanding hill in the Great Park, called Snow Hill.
On each side of the Long Walk, which is slightly raised, there is a double row of stately elms, now in their maturity. The view from Snow Hill is very fine; on its highest point, in 1832, was placed a colossal equestrian statue of George the Third, in bronze, by Sir Richard Westmacott; it occupies a pedestal formed of huge blocks of granite: the total elevation of the statue and pedestal exceeds fifty feet, and the statue (man and horse) is twenty-six feet in height. The statue was raised by George the Fourth: we are not aware of its cost, but the expense of the pedestal was 8000l.
Curious accounts are preserved of the building of the Castle by Edward III., for which purpose writs were issued to sheriffs, mayors, and bailiffs of the several counties to impress labourers, who were imprisoned on refusal. William of Wykeham was clerk of the works, with a salary of one shilling a day. In 1360 there were 360 workmen employed there; in 1362 many died of the plague, when new writs were issued. The works were not completed at the time of King Edward’s 49 death, and were continued by Richard II.; they included the mews for the falcons, a large and important establishment not within the walls. Chaucer was appointed clerk of the works in this reign, and he impressed carpenters, masons, and other artisans.
In the reign of Edward IV. (1474), St. George’s Chapel, one of the finest Perpendicular Gothic buildings in the country, was commenced, Bishop Beauchamp and Sir Reginald Bray being the architects. The first chapel was built here by King Henry I.; the second by King Edward III. upon the site of the present chapel: built when 1s. 6d. per day was high wages; and built by Freemasons. The Choir is fitted up with the stalls and banners of the Order of the Garter, each knight having his banner, helmet, lambriquin, crest, and sword; the dead have mementoes only in their armorial bearings. The very large Perpendicular window has 15 lights. In this Chapel is the tomb of King Edward IV., inclosed by “a range of steel gilt, cut excellently well in churchwork,” not by Quintin Matsys, but by Master John Tresilian, smith. On the arch above hung this King’s coat of mail, covered over with crimson velvet, and thereon the arms of France and England embroidered with pearl and gold interwoven with rubies. This trophy of honour was plundered thence by Captain Fogg in 1642, when also he robbed the Treasury of the Chapel of all the rich altar plate. In 1789, more than 300 years after its interment, the leaden coffin of King Edward IV. was discovered in laying down a new pavement. The skeleton is said to have measured seven feet in length! A lock of the King’s hair was procured by Horace Walpole for his Strawberry Hill collection. Here also are the graves of Henry VI., Henry VIII., and Queen Jane Seymour; the loyal Marquis of Worcester; and the grave of King Charles I. :
“ Famed for contemptuous breach of sacred ties,
By headless Charles see heartless Henry lies. ” — Byron.
In 1813 the coffin of King Charles I., was opened by Sir Henry Gilford, when the remains were found just as the faithful Herbert had described them, thus negativing the statement that the King lay in a nameless and unknown grave.
We have a few additions to the Romances. Froissart, adopting the common belief of his age, relates that king Arthur instituted his Order of the Knights of the Round Table at Windsor; but the existence of such a British King as Arthur is at least a matter of doubt, and that part of his history which assigns Windsor as one of his residences, may be certainly regarded as fabulous. Harrison, in his description of England, prefixed to Holinshed’s Chronicles, says the 50 Castle was “builded in times past by King Arthur, or before him by Arviragus, as it is thought.”
Froissart, who lived at the court of Edward III., probably had in his recollection some current traditions of the day, which have not descended to our age, or at least have not yet been brought to light.
Lambard, in his Topographical Dictionary, says: “It would make greatly (I know) as wel for the illustration of the glorie, in the extending of the antiquitie of this place, to alledge out of Frozard that King Arthur accustomed to hold the solemnities of his Round Table at Wyndsore: but as I dare not over bouldly avouche at King Arthure’s antiquities, the rather bycause it hathe bene thought a disputable question wheather theare weare ever any suche Kinge or no; so like I not to joine with Frozard in this part of that stoarie, bycause he is but a forrein writer, and (so farre as I see) the only man that hath delivered it unto us; and therefore, supposing it more safe to follow our owne hystorians, especially in our owne historie, I thinke good to leave the tyme of the Brytons, and to descend to the raygne of the Saxon Kings, to the end that they may have the first honour of the place, as they were indede the first authors of the name.”
The tradition of “Herne the hunter,” which Shakspeare has employed in his Merry Wives of Windsor, is that Herne, one of the Keepers of the Forest, was to be seen, after his death, with horns on his head, walking by night, “round about an oak,” in the vicinity of Windsor Castle. It is said that, “having committed some great offence, for which he feared to lose his situation and fall into disgrace, he hung himself upon the oak which his ghost afterwards haunted.” In the first sketch of the play, the tradition is briefly narrated, without any mention of the tree in connexion with it :
“ Oft have you heard since Horne the hunter dyed,
That women to affright their little children
Ses that he walkes in shape of a great stagge. ”
No allusion to the legend has ever been discovered in any other writer of Shakspeare’s time, and the period when Herne or Horne lived is unknown. In a manuscript, however, of the time of Henry VIII., in the British Museum, Mr. Halliwell has discovered, “Rycharde Horne, yeoman,” among the names of the “hunters whiche be examyned and have confessed for hunting in his Majesty’s forests;” and he suggests that this may have been the person to whom the tale related by Mrs. Page alludes, observing that “it is only convicting our great dramatist of an additional anachronism to those already known of a similar character, in attributing to him the introduction of a tale of the time 51 of Henry the Eighth into a play supposed to belong to the commencement of the fifteenth century.”
* This is Camden’s statement; but Stow gives two other etymologies — from Wind us over, from the ferry boat, rope and pole; and from the Wynd is sore, because it lies high and open to the weather. — Harl. MS. 356, fol. 13, “Of the Castell of Wyndsore,” in Stow’s handwriting.