[Illustration: WINDSOR, FROM THE BROCAS.]
Across the Thames, on the southern bank, the antique and noble towers of
Windsor Castle now rise high above the horizon. This is the sovereign's
rural court, and is probably the best known by the world of all the
English castles. The name is given various derivations: some ascribe it
to the river's winding course; others to "Wind us over," in allusion to
a rope-ferry there in ancient times; others to "Wind is sore," as the
castle stands high and open to the weather. From the Saxon days Windsor
has been a fortress, but the present castle owes its beginning to Edward
III., who was born at Windsor and built its earliest parts, commencing
with the great Round Tower in 1315. The ransoms of two captive kings,
John of France and David of Scotland, paid for the two higher wards. It
was at Windsor that King Edward instituted the Order of the Garter,
which is the highest British order of knighthood. Being impressed with
the charms of Alice, Countess of Salisbury, but she resisting his
advances, out of the gallantries of their coquetry came the circumstance
of the king's picking up her garter dropped at a ball and presenting it
to her. Some of the nobles smiled at this, which the king noticing,
said, "Honi soit qui mal y pense" ("Evil be to him who evil thinks"),
adding that shortly they would see that garter advanced to such high
renown as to be happy to wear it. Froissart, in giving the legend
telling of this institution of the Garter, says that it arose out of the
chivalrous self-denial that leads virtue to subdue passion. Henry VI.
was born at Windsor; Edward IV. added St. George's Chapel to the castle;
Henry VII. built the Tomb House, and Henry VIII. the gateway to the
Lower Ward; Queen Elizabeth added the gallery of the north terrace; and
in Charles II.'s reign the fortress, which it had been until that time,
was converted into a sort of French palace. Thus it remained until
George IV., in 1824, thoroughly restored it at a cost of $7,500,000. The
great gateways are known as Henry VIII.'s, St. George's, and King George
IV.'s, while within is the Norman or Queen Elizabeth's Gate. The Round
Tower or Keep was built for the assemblage of a fraternity of knights
which King Edward intended to model after King Arthur's "Knights of the
Round Table," but the project was abandoned after the institution of the
Order of the Garter.
[Illustration: ROUND TOWER, WEST END.
(By permission of Messrs. Harper & Brothers.)]
The Round Tower stands upon an artificial mound, and what was formerly
its surrounding ditch is now a sunken garden. From its commanding
battlements twelve counties can be seen, and the Prince of Wales is
constable of this tower, as indeed of the whole castle. This fine old
keep was the castle-prison from the time of Edward III. to that of
Charles II. The poet-king, James I. of Scotland, captured when ten years
old by Henry IV., was the first prisoner of note. Here he fell in love
with Jane Beaufort, daughter of the Duke of Somerset, and he tells in a
quaint poem the romance which ended in her becoming his queen. Henry
Howard, Earl of Surrey, brought to the block by Henry VIII., was also
confined there, and he too lamented his captivity in poetry. From the
top of the keep the dome of St. Paul's in London can be seen. The castle
was mercilessly plundered in the Civil Wars, till Cromwell interfered
for its protection. In its present condition the castle has three grand
divisions in the palatial parts--the state apartments, looking north;
the queen's private apartments, looking east; and the visitors'
apartments, looking south. The south and east sides of the quadrangle
contain over three hundred and seventy rooms. Southward of the castle is
the Windsor Great Park, to which the "Long Walk," said to be the finest
avenue of the kind in Europe, runs in a straight line for three miles
from the principal entrance of the castle to the top of a commanding
eminence in the park called Snow Hill. Double rows of stately elms
border the "Long Walk" on either hand, and it terminates at the fine
bronze equestrian statue of George III., standing on the highest part of
Snow Hill.
[Illustration: QUEEN'S ROOMS IN SOUTH-EAST TOWER, WINDSOR CASTLE.
(By permission of Messrs. Harper & Brothers.)]
St. George's Chapel, a beautiful structure of the Perpendicular Gothic,
was begun four hundred years ago, and contains the tomb of Edward IV.,
who built it. In 1789, more than three hundred years after his
interment, the leaden coffin of the king was found in laying a new
pavement. The skeleton is said to have been seven feet long, and Horace
Walpole got a lock of the king's hair. Here also lie Henry VI., Henry
VIII., and Charles I. The latter's coffin was opened in 1813, and the
king's remains were found in fair preservation. The close companionship
of Henry VIII. and Charles in death is thus described by Byron:
"Famed for contemptuous breach of sacred ties,
By headless Charles see heartless Henry lies."
The tradition of "Herne the Hunter," which Shakespeare gives in the
_Merry Wives of Windsor_, is said to be founded on the fact that Herne,
a keeper of Windsor Forest, having committed some offence, hanged
himself upon an oak tree. His ghost afterwards was to be seen, with
horns on its head, walking round about this oak in the neighborhood of
the castle.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL.
(By permission of Messrs. Harper & Brothers.)]