By James Henry Stevenson.
One morning the Professor, whom I had not seen since I left Tennessee,
accidentally unearthed me in London and proposed that we should visit
Windsor. Now, I may as well confess to defective initiative, in regard to
sight-seeing, for I had been within reach of Windsor on several former
occasions and had not yet seen the home of the most gracious queen the
world has ever known. This, too, in face of the fact that a German
professor had assured me that Windsor was “himmlisch.” When a German so
far forgets himself as to say that anything English is “heavenly,” be
assured he has great provocation.
[Illustration:
WINDSOR CASTLE FROM THE THAMES.
]
Of course, I acceded without hesitation to the Professor’s proposal and
we selected a train, appointed a _rendezvous_, and agreed to go the
following morning.
The Professor’s traveling companion was a “blue grass” doctor of
divinity, while I was courier, guide, and advance agent to the
“delegate,” sent by his admiring countrymen and brethren to unload some
ecclesiastical “thunder and lightning” on their conservative confrères
in the old land. The “delegate’s” wife was traveling with him as a sort
of balance wheel on his too impetuous energy and to see that he was not
imposed on by the overbearing foreigner; she was not averse to a little
vigorous sight-seeing when otherwise unemployed. They also joined the
party, which was completed by “Wee McGregor,” as the eight-year-old was
called, who looked to me for his traveling expenses.
Having visited London before, and being possessed of an unearned
reputation as a _dragoman_, I felt it was incumbent on me to show the
party the best and quickest way to reach Windsor. Accordingly I hailed
one of those obsolete conveyances which the London City Fathers provide
for the traveler, to whom the conservation of energy is of more moment
than arriving at a destination.
In due time, somewhat shaken but still in good humor, for the day was
yet young, we arrived at King’s Cross station on the Metropolitan
Railway, better known by the more modest and suggestive title of the
“Underground.” “Here,” I had said to the prospective sightseers, “we
shall get a train that will connect direct and without change at
Paddington station with the train for Windsor.” This was all true except
the “without change” clause. For this slight deviation from strict
veracity I have no apology to make. Indeed, I doubt whether I am entitled
to play the role of guide while so generous with the truth.
I kept my tourists “rounded up” and prevented them from embarking in
various directions. As there were trains passing every two or three
minutes it seemed a waste of time not to take one and I had, as a
consequence, a very busy quarter of an hour. At last our train came, and,
after rushing madly up and down the platform the entire length of the
train, we found places, though in different “stalls.”
When an American train arrives at a station you go in and find a seat.
When an English train, especially of the old style which is now happily
disappearing, arrives, you must first find a seat and then go in. You
trail up and down the platform and poke your nose into every compartment
answering to the class for which you have purchased tickets. Here is one
with two or three places vacant, but you have a party of four, and as
they are strangers in the country, you must keep them together to ensure
their alighting at the right place. Besides you naturally want to be
within speaking distance of one another. So you start back again to the
other end of the train, terrified every moment lest the engineer grow
weary of your bootless explorations, and decide to start. Ah! Here is a
vacant apartment at last, but just as you are about to step in with a
light heart you notice that it is marked “first class” and unfortunately
you are not a millionaire. You continue your search and find eventually
a vacant apartment of the class in which you are entitled to ride. Your
troubles are now ended; your party is seated; your _impedimenta_ are
laboriously stowed away in the racks, when, with envious nonchalance,
enters a smoker armed with a little cigarette that vomits smoke like
a factory chimney. The ladies are indignant; you rack your brain for
something sufficiently withering to say, and just as you are ready to
deliver, you notice, faintly etched on the window, the word “smoking.”
Now, if you were traveling in Austria, you would give the “guard” a
quarter to remove the label with the offensive word, and would settle
back virtuously into the leather cushions, but here, while the English
guard would be equally obliging—for a like “bakshish”—it is a more
serious matter to remove the door or window. In the meantime you have
left the smoker in quiet possession to fill the vacant space with clouds
of the fragrant weed. In despair you apply to the guard and when you
appropriately recognize his importance, he finds you a place in a moment.
The stations on the “Underground” are open to the surface and are light
and airy, but when the train plunges under London, and the compartment
fills up with the gases, that have been accumulating down here for the
past thirty years, you realize that traveling on the “Underground” does
not differ widely from suicide by slow asphyxiation.
The “delegate” put his silk handkerchief to his nostrils and looked
suspiciously at me. It requires some ten minutes to make the distance
between King’s Cross and Paddington, so he was unable to hold his breath
all the way. Every time he breathed I felt as if I had murdered a man.
My Tennessee friend and the Kentucky parson were not yet disposed to
be critical, so they chatted merrily, breathed regularly, and acted as
though these sulphur laden fumes were their “native air.”
But after we had quitted Paddington station, and the train had taken its
last few plunges under ground; when we had actually shaken off the dust
and grime and roar of London, the beauty of the incomparable English
landscape began to make us glad. Patchwork hillsides, where tiny fields
are partitioned off by greenest hedges, lovely valleys, where brimming
streams shimmer their length along, came, one by one, into view. The
English streams have no visible banks. The turf, green as an emerald,
grows clear to the water’s brink and dangles its luxuriant growth into
the quiet brook, as a barefoot boy, playing truant, cools his feet
in some wayside stream, while the master’s wrath grows warm. These
rivers—for rivers I must call them, though a good athlete might almost
leap from side to side—are always full and seem as though the accidental
dropping in of a pebble would make them overflow.
As hill and valley, hedge and garden, country home and quiet hamlet,
all of surpassing loveliness, swept past us, my entire party began to
fall under the spell of this exquisite beauty, and I felt that there had
arisen the unanimous, though unexpressed, conviction that now, at last,
the self-appointed guide was earning his salary.
[Illustration:
WINDSOR CASTLE FROM THE THAMES.
]
As Windsor is distant from London by about forty minutes ride, the
tourist arrives at his destination fresh and “fit,” to use an expressive
English phrase. When we issued forth from the station we encountered, as
a matter of course, the ubiquitous hackman who, in all lands, stands ever
ready to drive you to all the places you especially do not want to visit.
The object of our pilgrimage was the Castle, distant a stone’s throw
from the station, so there was no occasion to provoke an unnecessary and
futile dispute with the “cabbie.” We next encountered an army of small
boys distributing handbills, on which were set forth, in eloquent terms,
the merits of the various “tea rooms” of the city, which unselfishly
cater to the comfort of the stranger. We accepted this service as a
matter of course, first, because it was gratuitous; second, because it
was the easiest way to get rid of the boy, and third, because, though a
sight-seer may pull through the day without the assistance of a hansom
or a “growler,” I have never known one who was not ready to take a
little refreshment, especially when he was traveling abroad. After we
had become thoroughly tired out, with climbing the steps of the Round
Tower and general sight-seeing, we found a cosy, clean and restful upper
room, where the actual bill of fare was not badly out of harmony with the
promises of the card.
The town of Windsor, itself, possesses nothing of special interest to the
traveler. The Castle, situated in a commanding position on the Thames,
dominates the town from every point of view, and is, with its environs,
the sole reason for a visit.
The group of buildings enclosed by the walls is nearly a mile in
circumference and has been the favorite home of most of the sovereigns of
England since the days of William the Conqueror. Each one has continued
the lavish expenditures of his predecessor to enrich and beautify it.
It fascinates, therefore, not only by its great beauty, the romance
suggested by wall and tower, but also, and especially, by the variety of
its architecture. Here we can study the master-builder’s art, as gate,
chapel, and tower step forth, in quick succession, to instruct us. The
space, enclosed by the walls of the castle, is divided into two wards—the
lower and the upper—by the great Round Tower, which occupies the brow of
a hill, or mound, commanding the upper ward, which is level, and looking
down upon the lower ward, which is situated on a gradual incline. The
walls are pinched together at the Tower, but swell out around either
ward, suggesting somewhat the figure eight.
We arrived at Windsor by the Great Western Railway, and after walking up
a little hill, High Street, passing on the left the beautiful Jubilee
statue of Queen Victoria, we found ourselves at the main entrance of the
lower ward, Henry VIII’s gateway. Notice this splendid example of Tudor
architecture, built about 1510. Either side of the gateway is flanked
by a mighty tower, which you will notice has three sides to make more
effective the defence. Over the gateway, in a row, may be seen the badges
of Henry: the _fleur-de-lis_, suggesting the English claim to the French
crown; the Tudor Rose; and the portcullis, used so frequently after the
twelfth century to protect the gateway from sudden assault.
My readers will remember that Henry was rather indulgent to himself in
the matter of marriages. He experienced, all told, six wives, of whom
Providence removed two, divorce set aside two more, and the executioner’s
axe cut short the career of the remaining pair.
His second wife, Anne Boleyn, the most charming of the lot, whom Henry
first married, afterward divorcing her rival, paid the penalty of her
attractiveness, or coquetry, at the executioner’s block in the Tower of
London. She, with a gorgeous retinue attending her, was met at this gate
by Henry and welcomed to the place with the assurance that she would
shortly be its real mistress. All this, however, to the great regret of
the “delegate’s” wife, took place before our arrival.
How different is the architecture of the Norman gate with its graceful
round towers! Here, in these chambers which you may see above the
entrance, and in the rooms of the towers themselves, were kept, during
the struggle between Crown and Parliament, many famous prisoners.
As we entered the lower ward, by Henry VIII’s gateway, the beautiful
proportions of St. George’s Chapel rose before us on the left. Adjoining,
on the east, is Albert Memorial Chapel, the gem of the entire group.
Still traveling east and ascending the hill, we come first to the
residence of the Dean and Chapter, and then to the famous Round Tower.
Directly across from St. George’s the group of buildings is the residence
of the Military Knights, who date from the founding of the order of the
Garter, when Edward III established this to provide for the relief of
poor knights. It was called by Elizabeth, “Poor Knights of Windsor,” but
William IV took away its reproach by giving it the present name.
These are the main features of the lower ward, the buildings being
grouped around a large balloon-shaped court.
[Illustration:
WINDSOR CASTLE, NORMAN GATEWAY.
]
Beyond the Round Tower lies the upper ward, perfectly level, with
stately buildings on three sides of a square which contains a splendid
example of artistic gardening. The buildings on the north are the State
apartments, and those on the south and east the royal suites. This group
has twenty-four towers, seventeen state apartments, forty-eight rooms,
seventy-nine bedrooms, sixty-five sitting rooms, and rooms containing two
hundred and thirty-one beds for servants.
Our first objective point was St. George’s Chapel. The exterior of this
building is very beautiful and singularly in harmony with the surrounding
structures. This effect the architect accomplished by avoiding the use
of the conventional church tower, while at the same time preserving the
ecclesiastical appearance.
We found, within, a group of people in charge of a verger, who was
explaining to them the various objects of interest. We went our own
way and when we had finished, found that the verger and his flock had
departed and the door was locked. It felt, at first, a trifle like being
in jail, but conscious of our rectitude, we waited till the door opened
again and then passed out. As we had found the door open when we arrived
and had entered in unchallenged, it did not occur to us that the verger
considered it necessary to personally conduct us through the building and
bid us farewell when we left; nor did we think that we had in any way
slighted him till the Kentucky parson, who had remained behind to ask
a few questions, later reported that the ecclesiastical pathfinder had
enquired of him, with fine scorn, if “that aristocratic party belonged
to him.” The “aristocratic party,” was the professor, the “delegate” and
myself, who were now safely out of reach, while the verger’s fee jingled
merrily at the bottom of our pockets.
On every hand, at Windsor, are posted notices forbidding the servants
to receive any gratuities, but we learned, that notwithstanding the
seemliness of such a regulation in such a place, none but a novice took
it seriously. Consequently, when we later visited the Royal Stables, we
emerged proudly from the ordeal after having deposited a shilling in the
ever ready hand of the guide.
But to return to the chapel. It was begun by Henry I and mutilated as
usual by the soldiers of the Puritans, and restored again by Charles II
and his successors, but Victoria has perhaps done most for it.
[Illustration:
HENRY VIII GATEWAY.
]
There are many tiny chapels around the various walls, in the fashion of
the churches of Europe. We noticed, especially, the Braye chapel to the
right of the entrance. On the walls hung a sword and swordbelt, showing
evident marks of service in the field. An inscription explained that they
belonged to Captain Wyatt-Edgall, who recovered the body of the Prince
Imperial, in Zululand. He, himself, was also killed in South Africa. The
same chapel contains the monument to Prince Imperial—son of Napoleon III
and Eugènie,—who fought with the English in South Africa, and there died.
A translation of the inscription at the foot of the marble figure—a
figure of the recumbent prince, grasping his sword which lies along his
body—reads: “The well-beloved youth, the comrade of our soldiers, slain
in the African war, and thence carried to the tomb of his fathers, and
represented in funereal marble in this holy domicile of kings, Queen
Victoria receiveth as her guest.”
There is also an interesting extract from the will of the prince, which
reads: “I shall die with a feeling of profound gratitude for her Majesty,
the Queen of England, and for the royal family, and for the country in
which, during eight years, I have received so cordial a hospitality.”
The choir, a church within the church, is situated in the center of the
chapel and at the east end. A passage runs the entire way round the sides
and rear. It is raised some four feet above the level of the floor and
is a long gallery with two rows of lateral seats, and an organ, said to
be the finest choir organ in Europe, at the farthest end. The seats,
on either side, are the stalls of the Knights of the Garter. They are
most elaborately carved from floor to ceiling, decorated with crests and
emblems.
The remains of Henry VIII and Lady Jane Seymour, who was neither divorced
nor beheaded, since she lived only a year after her marriage, are buried
beneath the center of the choir. Under the entire chapel a royal vault
was constructed by George III, cut out of the chalk rocks below. It is
seventy by twenty by fifteen feet and designed for eighty-one bodies.
[Illustration:
THE ROUND TOWER, WINDSOR CASTLE.
]
Directly in the rear of St. George’s is Albert Memorial Chapel, the most
interesting feature, as well as the most artistic and costly creation at
Windsor. The chapel was begun by the pious, though much married, Henry
VIII, who soon abandoned it for Westminster. Constancy was, perhaps, not
one of Henry’s strong points. Wolsey, who was Henry’s pope and aspired
to be the real one, begged and obtained the chapel for himself, but
fell from Henry’s favor, as the ladies had done, before he could finish
it. When the Parliamentary forces obtained possession of Windsor, they
desecrated it as usual, and sold its plunder for $3,000. Wolsey’s
sarcophagus, which escaped, was removed by George III, three hundred
years later, to St. Paul’s, where it now holds the dust of Nelson.
It is well known that Victoria decided to convert this chapel into a
memorial for the Prince Consort after his death. No expense was spared,
and when it was completed in 1874, its interior rivaled the most splendid
ecclesiastical structures in the world.
The fourteen windows, with panels beneath thirteen of them, are dreams
of art. The windows contain portraits and arms of various kings, queens
and princes, and some symbolical figures. The panels beneath picture
scenes from the Old and New Testaments, suggestive of various virtues and
religious truths. The chapel contains in the center, besides the Prince’s
cenotaph, the tombs of the Dukes of Albany and Clarence.
The Round Tower is the most picturesque feature of the castle. Nothing
is so interesting as a tower. Not a modern tower—a mere imitation—but
a real tower, with dungeons, where prisoners have clanked their chains
in despair, with great halls where knights in armor foregathered, with
secret passages and musty mysteries in every corner—a tower that has
lived on to see this age of civilization superimposed upon its own rough,
ready and bloody past.
[Illustration:
VICTORIA TOWER AND SOUTH SIDE.
]
The tower is over three hundred feet in circumference and is built on the
top of a high mound in a most commanding situation. It is reached, after
one passes through the Norman Gate, by a long flight of steps, which
is continued up through the structure till the base of the turret is
reached. This flight is commanded by a cannon placed at the head of the
stairs. The turret, a good-sized tower itself, is built upon the top of
the old tower of George III. Within the turret, the stairs wind around a
massive bell, brought from Sevastopol.
Finally the top is reached, three hundred and twenty-five feet from the
ground, and we walk round the ample promenade—the turret is twenty-five
feet wide—dumb in the presence of the loveliness before us. How beautiful
is an English landscape, with its living green, threaded here and there
by the silver sparkle of a stream. West and south we looked out over
Windsor forest and parks, while in the north Eton College was plainly
visible with the inevitable cricketers, dressed in white flannel, moving
to and fro over the matchless sward, or facing the “crease,” which is, I
believe, the “correct” name for the “pitcher’s box.”
How much history and mystery might not the walls of this old tower, built
by Edward III, teach us, could they but speak! This tower once contained
the great round table of the Knights of the Garter and was the home of
the constable-governors, who were responsible for the safe keeping of the
state prisoners, among the most famous of whom have been John, of France,
and David, of Scotland.
As illustration of the possible mysteries that may still lurk about the
tower, I will mention a recent discovery. While investigating a stone
cover with an iron handle, the mouth of a well was uncovered. It was
found to descend one hundred and sixty-four feet, to the level of the
Thames, and was lined up with masonry most of the way.
From the turret a fine view is obtained of the state and private
apartments of the castle. These contain magnificent collections of rare
bric-a-brac and art objects of all kinds. Paintings, tapestries, and
ceramics of priceless worth, are kept in the various rooms and galleries.
The Van Dyck room recalls the fact that this Dutch artist was brought to
England, knighted and pensioned by Charles I. There are also a Zuccarelli
room and a Rubens room, with famous paintings from the artists whose
names they bear.
Our next visit was paid to the Royal Stables. Here we were received at
an office, and after registering our names and nativity were put in
charge of guides. Words cannot do justice to the splendid appearance of
the well-matched horses, a large proportion of which were greys, and the
cleanliness and order of the stalls. Even the straw beneath the horses’
feet was unruffled. At the foot of the stall was laid a nicely plaited
braid of straw, forming a pretty border, and on either side stood little
sheaves of straw, daintily bound, and presenting the appearance of a row
of sentinels down the long line.
We were conducted through stable after stable, and shown horses for
all sorts of uses, and horses that were no longer of any use but were
pensioners of His Majesty, for services already rendered the State. Then
came the carriages. Carriages for royal purposes, and for State purposes
and for “breaking in” purposes.
What impressed me most was an old chair on wheels—such as one sees
invalids moved about in. It was as commonplace looking as one could
well imagine. To it were attached a pair of shafts, and I recognized
it at once as there rose before me the vision of the Queen, with broad
brimmed straw hat, and accompanied only by a little child, usually one
of her grandchildren, while a humble donkey ambled through the grounds
of Windsor and pulled the improvised carriage. Such was the picture I
had seen in the Sunday school papers, and now the sight of the actual
carriage gave the much needed air of reality. This mode of taking
exercise emphasized at once both the Queen’s independence and simplicity
of manner.
The Great Park, adjoining Windsor Castle, contains 18,000 acres. Within
it is located Frogmore House, another royal residence, near which is
the Royal Mausoleum. Everyone must have been impressed, at some time
or other, with the faithfulness of the late queen to the memory of the
Prince Consort. Throughout her long widowhood, she seems to have lived
in the presence of his death. The monuments, that perpetuate his name,
unless one looks at their artistic value, seem an extravagant waste of
money. Certainly he rendered no conspicuous service to the State, so that
we are justified in regarding these costly memorials as tributes of the
loyal and undying love which the Queen cherished for her husband.
Royal marriages, that are so frequently the result of political
exigencies, are not always happy. Perhaps it would not be wide of the
mark to say, are not often happy. All the greater reason, therefore, that
this one, which was conspicuously congenial, should iterate its testimony.
On the fourteenth of December, the anniversary of the Prince’s death,
the Dean of Windsor regularly held a memorial service at the mausoleum,
during the lifetime of the Queen. Those who had obtained tickets were
admitted to the mausoleum after the service, but this was the only date
in the year when it might be seen.
The foundation stone of the structure was laid by the Queen, herself, and
contains the following words:
“His mourning widow, the queen, directed all that is mortal
of Prince Albert, to be placed in this sepulchre, A. D. 1862.
Farewell, well-beloved: Here at last I will rest with thee; with
thee, in Christ, I will rise again.”
Windsor Castle has had a long and varied history; it has been associated
closely with many of the kings of England and with stirring scenes of
English history, but for many, many years to come, its mention will call
to memory the good and universally beloved woman—Victoria.