From out the dimness of England’s ancient story, Windsor and
Winchester, and Camelot and Caerleon are raised aloft, lit with the
light of the romance of Arthur. Warwick, Dover, and Belvoir, and
Alnwick and Conway and Caernarvon, the tower of London and again
Windsor, rise from the times of the Norman dominion. Edinburgh,
Kenilworth, Penshurst, and Naworth; Carisbrooke, and again Windsor,
remain in our sight to recall most forcibly the period when “our loyal
passion for our temperate kings” began to make these castle-landmarks
of our story scarcer in the land.
Through all the long review of points of time that challenge
observation, Windsor stands the most enduring and the most majestic of
the places around which gather the memories of all ages of England’s
greatness.
In the valley of England’s famous river the Normans built two strong
towers, that of London and that of Windsor. This stream nursed the
cradle of Norman power, and saw the renewed birth of English liberty,
when the stranger-barons, whose fathers subdued England, wrung from
their king the great charter of the rights of the subject.
No wonder William found the hill a good place, for there is no fairer
view in England. That from Richmond is not so extensive; and at Windsor
he possessed besides, a grand forest country for his sports. His men
could put off their chain-mail and pointed helmets with the straight
face-guards, and give chase to the red deer, which then abounded all
over the country, the hunters having no metal about them except the
sharp, plain Norman spur on their heels, and the iron on the tips of
their arrows.
Now the distant smoke of the mightiest city in the world can be
descried on the horizon. In those days so rarely was smoke visible,
that signals were transmitted by kindling fires at market-places,
and the clear air knew not the fumes that make the white river-fogs
dark-yellow in colour, and stifling to breathe. The chequered
appearance of the nearer landscape, divided by hedgerow and field to
the north and east, is modern; but to the south and west the woods of
oak must present much their appearance of the olden days. No engineer
has altered the river, or been able even to abate its occasional winter
floods, which turn the banks above Windsor into a shallow lake. The
further landscape is still what it was. It is still a wooded land.
There are no sterile patches, no ugly intervals, no naked tracts of
sand or earth. All is green, and better than in the early days in
this--that the cheerfulness of peace is on it, and the “stately homes”
are more frequent, and the villages need no rampart, but expand in
security, and, it must be added, often with a system of architecture to
which distance alone can lend enchantment.
[Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
The Castle was very strong. These keeps were built so that there was
no chance of a surprise. Massive gates placed in security beyond deep
ditches were let into the walls, well defended by battlement and
flanking towers. Drawbridges and portcullises might be forced, but
there the enemy only found himself at the beginning of his work.
Narrow passages led to other defences, and the keep itself was reached
by a stair so narrow that one man only could enter at a time.
The walls of the lowest story showed only tiny shot- or loopholes. The
second story showed more of these, but so narrow that no torch could be
thrown in. The third story had windows so high in the wall that arrows
or bolts shot from below could only hit the arch of the opening, to
fall back harmless.
The top stories were filled with weapons that could throw darts,
stones, and heavy balls, so assailants could not easily take a Norman
keep.
The Normans had taste as well as strength, and gradually the whole
neighbourhood was made more beautiful. During reign after reign the
kings showered favours on their finest possession.
Around the Keep arose a Central Ward--that is the space outside was
enclosed with towers and walls and gardens. Then lower down the ridge
another king built a church, and beyond it again other great towers, as
the town arose, under the Castle’s shelter and protection. This part
was again flanked and made strong, and called the Lower Ward. The
church was dedicated first to St. Edmond, and then to St. George.
But on the other side of the Keep the monarchs built themselves
something in the way of lodging far better than the small rooms of
the Keep, for a wide range of palace apartments existed there before
even the days of the Tudors. These were extended and improved from the
days of Queen Elizabeth to the days of Queen Victoria. These buildings
formed the Upper Ward.
The effect of this mass of buildings, dominated by the Round Tower, is
very fine, and no better example exists of the feudal fortress. Whether
seen from the river, with the red-roofed houses of the town clustered
below the great white walls, or from the park, where Windsor rises like
an enchanted castle above the wide greensward, which is varied with the
groves of ancient oak and beech, there is nothing to compare with it.
All who speak the English tongue may be equally proud of the palace
strength of their great forefathers.
Chambers built over castle gateways were often used as prisons for
those whose lot was not to be made too hard. For the unfortunates who
were to be severely dealt with, a far more horrible prison was provided
in the shape of a dungeon with a narrow orifice above, through which
the victim was let down with cords into a vault, having often no
windows. Places like this must have soon become foul and fatal to the
captives.
At Windsor there is a very fair prison above the gateway, through which
you must pass before entering the great stair that climbs the mound
of the Keep. Although the windows are narrow they give light enough,
and on the walls are the names of the men who here, in their durance
vile, amused themselves by writing their name or making their mark by
scratches on the stone. Sometimes they added a little tracing of their
arms.
These small rooms are among the few which remain exactly as they
existed in the Middle Ages. In other apartments there has been much
alteration. Most of the ceilings of Verrio are gone, the ancient
tapestries have been removed, the heavy ornamentation of the times of
the Georges, and almost all the still ponderous yet better decorations
of Jacobean times, have disappeared.
But the towers which held celebrated prisoners of State are yet
pointed out. The two most notable are just under the hill on which
the great round Keep is built. One of these has been raised high, and
a very narrow stair communicates with each of its little rooms. Here
King John of France had many a long hour in which to repent of his
bad generalship at Poitiers, where the young Black Prince took him
prisoner. Here he was brought after that ride through the streets of
London, which must have been to him so humiliating, although he was
shown much courtesy by his captor.
It was the opposite tower across the Upper Ward, with better
accommodations that Henry V. of England assigned to the use of the
young King of Scotland, who had been illegally captured during a time
of truce. Young James of Scotland’s uncle, the old Duke of Albany,
was not supposed to be particularly sorry to have his sovereign and
nephew kept in England, for it gave Albany all power in Scotland. So
at Windsor James remained for nearly twenty years, becoming expert in
literature and in knightly exercises.
The English were kind to him, and it was from this building of his
captivity, now called Edward the Third’s Tower, that he saw his future
Queen, a daughter of the House of Beaufort, walking in the garden at
the base of the Keep.
His long residence in England was beneficial to James in many ways,
and when he was at last allowed to return to his northern kingdom,
he entered it the most accomplished knight of his time. He was much
beloved by the English, with whom he managed, when on the throne, to
keep on fair terms. His reign was illustrious, and worthy of a better
close than that of the tragic assassination by which it was ended.
We need not think of all the terrible things that have happened at
Windsor Castle--of prisoners dying by inches in dark dungeons; of men
mutilated for treason, like the Earl of Eu; of the rare attacks the
Castle has been called to endure; of the ruin wrought in glorious
chapel and halls by Cromwell’s soldiery. For Windsor has chiefly been
associated with the brighter and more cheery events of the national
life.
Here, more often than in any other royal home, were the joy-bells rung
for the births and marriages of our princes; although here, too, the
funeral knell has also been often heard; for it is the tomb, as it is
the dwelling-place, of the monarchs of England.
The most daring and most romantic of the Constables of the Round Tower,
the fiery Prince Rupert, made his rooms beautiful with pictures, with
tapestry, and with ornament. At once an artist and a warrior, such as
few countries have produced, he lived to see the palace a prey to the
spoiler.
Earlier as well as later days are recalled by the buildings below,
which are now devoted to the library. They overlook the Thames and
England’s great school of Eton. From their windows one gazes across
the river far below, on the roofs and towers of the college founded by
Henry VI.
Between the groups of houses and the thickly-scattered trees one may
catch glimpses of bands of boys in the distance playing football or
cricket, or rowing on the Thames. The poet Gray, looking on the same
cheerful scene, wrote gloomily, “Alas! regardless of their doom, the
little victims play.” Well, they are fortunate victims, and the men who
have been at school there would gladly live over again the years they
spent at Eton.
It was in this part of the Castle that Queen Elizabeth lived and moved
and had her imperious being. It was in a little chamber in a turret
here that Queen Anne received the despatch from Marlborough wishing her
joy on the victory of Blenheim. He wrote on a scrap of paper from the
field, “Your Majesty’s troops have had a great victory, and Marshall
Tallard is in my coach.” He had, with Prince Eugene, achieved one of
the most fruitful successes of that reign of victories.
The old look of a fortress has given way to that of the palace, fearing
no foeman; and long may this be so! But the Castle could be made strong
against everything save long-range artillery. The walls could contain
a large force, and its underground apartments have the solidity of
bomb-proof. Sentries pace its ramparts, and a regiment of guards is
also at hand.
Nor is it dependent for water on river or outside supply. Not long ago
a room in the Round Tower was complained of as always cold. The floor
was taken up, and there lay a vast circular stone with great iron
rings. By these it was lifted, and a deep, carefully-constructed Norman
well was discovered, going down to the level of the Thames itself.
The interior of the group of rooms extending from the north side of
the Norman Gate to the angle at which the red-coated porters await
visitors, now devoted to a fine library, is not always shown. But
for those who have leave, a most interesting collection of medals,
illuminated manuscripts, ancient buildings, and Oriental miniatures,
is displayed. Handsome Elizabethan chimney-pieces, on one of which the
great Queen herself is represented, warm the north wall. The windows
on the other, embayed in presses full of well-arranged literature,
look out towards that far-off church, the spire of which is easily
recognised through glass, where Gray wrote his immortal _Elegy_.
One little room is that in which Queen Anne was sitting when
Marlborough’s despatch announcing the victory of Blenheim was brought
to her.
Where the library ends is the first of a set of splendid apartments,
used only by the public and the greatest sovereigns. Paintings by
Zuccarelli, who, at his best, is always most pleasing, are hung over
cabinets containing very beautiful porcelain. Onwards, on the north
side, room after room can be most profitably examined, for the pictures
are of particular interest, either on account of their history or their
art. Formerly the Sovereign’s family lived in this part of the Castle.
Now they live on the southern side of the Upper Ward, where dwelt in
other days the great officers of state.