WINDSOR AND ETON
However disappointed a foreign monarch, on his first visit to England,
may be with the drab hideousness of Buckingham Palace, he cannot but
confess that in Windsor Castle we have a dwelling meet even for the
King of England. Both architecturally and by reason of its age, Windsor
is a truly royal palace. Its history is linked with that of our kings
until its very stones proclaim the annals of our country. Ages ago,
Edward the Confessor took a fancy to this quiet place by the Thames,
and he gave it to his beloved monks of Westminster. William I. saw what
a splendid shooting lodge might be built in the midst of the wild and
open country abounding in game, and after having first one shooting
lodge and then another in the neighbourhood, he acquired the high
outstanding boss or knob of chalk on which the castle stands, and built
thereon a residence for himself. His son, Henry I., altered it greatly;
and succeeding kings and queens have rarely been content to leave it
without an alteration or addition as their mark. Windsor has ever been
a favourite with royalty. It has held its own while Westminster and
Whitehall and Greenwich utterly vanished; while the Tower and Hampton
have ceased to be royal dwellings; and it is still pre-eminently the
royal castle. Certain kings, such as William III., have sometimes
preferred other places for a while, but Windsor has satisfied alike the
dignity of Edward III. and the homeliness of George III.
[Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE]
The situation is superb. The castle stands high above the river, which
here curves, so as to show off its irregular outlines to the greatest
advantage. They rise in a series of rough levels to the mighty Round
Tower, the crown of the whole, which is massive enough to dominate,
but not sufficiently high to dwarf the rest. Turrets, battlements,
and smaller towers serve only to emphasize the dignity of this central
keep. It was built in the time of Edward III., and strangely enough,
though altered and heightened in that worst period of architectural
taste, the reign of George IV., it was not spoiled; and even to a child
proclaims something of the grandeur one naturally associates with it.
As seen from the bridge the whole of the north range can be followed
by the eye, from the Prince of Wales's Tower, facing the east terrace,
to the Curfew Tower on the west. Intermediately there are the State
apartments, and the Norman gateway, over which is the Library. These
overlook the north terrace--open to the public at all hours from
sunrise to sunset.
The view from this terrace is very fine, stretching away to Maidenhead,
and at times, on days of cloud and shadow, the light-coloured walls of
Clieveden stand out suddenly, caught by a passing gleam, amid a forest
of green trees. We can look down on the whole of Eton--the church with
its tall spire; the buttresses and pinnacles of the chapel standing up
white against an indigo background; the red and blue roofs piled this
way and that; and the green playing fields girdled by the swift river.
It was on the castle terrace that George III. used to walk with all his
family, except the erring eldest, when he took those tiresome parades
which Miss Burney describes with so much life-like detail.
The Chapel cannot be seen from the river, as it is in the lower ward
behind the canons' houses, and is not sufficiently high to rise well
above them.
It would be of little use to attempt to tell stories of Windsor, for
its history belongs to the history of England and not to the river
Thames; yet there is one memory which may be noted. Young James Stuart
of Scotland had been sent by his father, Robert III., to France after
the death of his elder brother, the wild Duke of Rothesay, nominally
for education, but in reality for safe keeping. The boy was captured by
the English while on the sea and brought as a prisoner to England. He
was then only about ten or twelve years old. He was treated with every
consideration, and educated so worthily that he became afterwards one
of the best of all the Scottish kings. He was at first in the Tower
and elsewhere, but when he reached young manhood he was brought to
Windsor, where he had apartments allotted to him. Though he was allowed
to follow the chase and pursue the amusements of his time, he was yet
a prisoner, and the sad opening stanzas of his great poem, the _Kingis
Quair_, speak the melancholy he often felt. This poem was composed at
Windsor, and its pensiveness changes after the day when, looking down
from his window in the castle, the youth saw walking in the garden Joan
Beaufort, whom he afterwards made his wife:
And therewith cast I down mine eye again,
Where as I saw, walking under the tower,
The fairest or the freshest young flower
That ever I saw methought before that hour.
His visions further on in the poem must have been coloured more or less
by what he daily saw before him, and we may credit to the Thames the
flowing lines:
Where in a lusty plain took I my way,
Along a river pleasant to behold,
Embroidered all with fresh flowers gay,
Where, through the gravel, bright as any gold,
The crystal water ran so clear and cold.
[Illustration: WINDSOR]
Windsor should be seen in sunshine and heat, when black shadows set off
the towering walls, and all the uneven houses and crooked streets are
pieced in light and shade. Then it is exceedingly like a foreign town
in its details; and many people who travel miles to admire Chinon, and
others of its class, would do well to visit Windsor first.
The town has always been subordinate to the castle, for it was the
castle that caused the town to spring up, as there were always numbers
of artificers, attendants, grooms, workmen and others needed for the
service of the Court. In the fourteenth century it was reckoned that
the Court employed an army of 20,000 of such people. These would all
have to be housed somehow, and the nearer the protection of the castle
the better; hence the town on the slopes.
The Home Park, in which is the mausoleum, borders the river. It is
separated by a road from the Great Park, made for hunting. Pope's poem
on "Windsor Forest" is not particularly beautiful; perhaps the best
descriptive lines are those that follow:
There, interspersed in lawns and opening glades,
Thin trees arise that shun each others shades:
Here in full light the russet plains extend;
There, wrapt in clouds, the bluish hills ascend.
Windsor Park is introduced by Shakspeare as the scene of some of
Falstaff's escapades, an honour shared by the neat, bright village of
Datchet, opposite. Datchet is a model village grouped about a green,
and the houses are softened by all the usual creepers and bushes: we
see roses, jasmine, laurustinus, magnolia, and ampelopsis at every
turn. Above and below Datchet this clean neatness continues.
The Victoria and Albert bridges are severe, and the weir and the great
bow of the channel, which is cut by the lock-stream, have no particular
characteristics. The whole neighbourhood has rather the air of holding
itself on its best behaviour, as though royalty might any moment appear
upon the scene. As might be expected, the scenery is rather like the
poetry it inspired. Here is Sir John Denham's effusion about Coopers
Hill:
My eye, descending from the hill, surveys
Where Thames, among the wanton valleys strays:
Thames, the most loved of all the Ocean's sons
By his old sire, to his embraces runs:
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity.
There is a pretty reach below Old Windsor, where willows and poplars
are massed effectively. It is in places like this, where they grow
abundantly, that the beautiful tawny colour which willows assume in the
spring, just before bursting into leaf, can be best seen.
The Bells of Ouseley stands at a bend, and with its tinted walls
and the old elm tree growing close to the entrance, is a typical
old-English Inn. The road to Staines passes by the water's edge, and
the guide-post is less reticent than guide-posts are wont to be, for it
tells us this is the "Way to Staines, except at high-water."
As we pass softly back up the current to Eton, we think how often
in this reach the incomparable Izaak and his friend Sir Henry Wotton
fished together.
I sat down under a willow tree by the water side ... for
I could there sit quietly, and, looking on the water, see
some fishes sport themselves in the silver streams, others
leaping at flies of several shapes and colours; ... looking
down the meadows, could see here a boy gathering lilies
and ladysmocks, and there a girl cropping culverkeys and
cowslips.
Wotton built a fishing box a mile below the college, from which he and
Walton often sallied forth during the fifteen years he was provost of
Eton, and to his rod many a "jealous trout that low did lie, rose at a
well dissembled fly," as he himself has left on record.
Ye distant spires, ye antique towers
That crown the wat'ry glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th' 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.
--_Gray._
In rounding the great sweep of the river below the London and South
Western railway bridge, we catch at once the pinnacles of Eton
chapel--most glorious of chapels--and see the green playing fields.
The long tree-covered island of Romney, on one side of which lies the
lock, ends in a terrible "snout," strengthened by "camp-shedding." This
point is locally known as the "Cobbler," and is a source of peril to
many an inexperienced boatman.
[Illustration: ETON CHAPEL FROM THE FIELDS]
The bridge over the river can, unfortunately, hardly be called a good
feature in the landscape--it is as ugly as a railway bridge! Just above
it is a row of boat-houses, and then follows the Brocas, the famous
meadow. Above the bridge is a tiny islet which serves as an objective
in the Fourth of June procession of boats. The boats come down and
round the island, and once more returning, pass under the bridge to the
lock, having made a sort of spiral. Nearly all the Eton races are rowed
in this strip of the river, though, of course, Henley Regatta is the
greatest event in the boating calendar. A small string of islands faces
some little public gardens, and away northward winds the Great Western
Railway on a series of small arches which carry it over the marshy
ground, no doubt at one time under water.
Beyond the line is a small backwater known as Cuckoo weir, the bathing
place of the lower boys. Here the swimming trials take place, when
a set of trembling pink youngsters stand in a punt ready to take a
graceful header, or, from sheer nervousness, to fall with an ugly flop
smack upon the water and be disqualified for the time being!
The bathing place of the upper boys, called by the dignified title of
Athens, is further up in the main river, near the curious island on
which is Windsor racecourse. The river winds giddily in and out between
the end of this island and Upper and Lower Hope, which lie between it
and Cuckoo weir. A mill stands at the end of the long narrow stream
that separates the racecourse from the mainland, and on the other side
of the island is Boveney Lock. The quaint old chapel stands amid trees
further up.
Above the island was once Surley Hall, a favourite resort of the
Etonians, but it is now pulled down, and Monkey Island is the place
to go to on half-holidays. Monkey Island is a good way up, and is the
third of a row of islands. The little one below it, called Queen's
ait, now belongs to the Eton boys, who have built a small cottage on
it. Monkey Island itself is a curious and attractive place, except
when the launches come up from Windsor on Saturdays, bringing hundreds
of people, who sit about at little tables on the green sward under
the famous walnut trees, and call for refreshments. There is a large
pavilion, part boat-house, which belongs to the Eton boys, where they
can get tea served without mingling with the townspeople. Near it is
a quaint little temple. This, as well as the house, now the hotel,
was built by the third Duke of Marlborough, a man of curious taste.
The hall in the hotel is painted all round with the figures of monkeys
engaged in various sports and pastimes. There is a broad frieze which
appears to have been executed in water colours on plaster; the ceiling
is likewise painted, but in rather a different style. The monkeys
are a good size, and attract a vast crowd of visitors. The pretty
verandah round the hotel redeems its appearance externally. Inside it
has at once all the attractions and disadvantages of an old house--low
ceilings, very small rooms; but on the other hand there are windings
and twistings, crooked passages and odd corners, that delight the heart
of those to whom machine-made houses are an abomination. The duke's
bedroom is shown, and is as queerly shaped a room as ever mortal man
conceived. Monkey Island is being embanked with the precious gravel
dredged from the bed of the Thames, and, though no doubt a necessary
precaution, as the river insidiously breaks off what it can, the
operation is not a beautiful one. The island is very proud of its
walnut trees, and well it may be, for they are a great change after
the ubiquitous willows, and their gnarled stems and fine shady leaves
are just the right element in such a scene as a gay lawn covered with
summer folk in summer dresses.
From Monkey Island the little church tower of Bray can be seen, but
before reaching it Bray Lock has to be negotiated, and here are a long
sinuous osier-covered ait and a mill, making, as usual, a convenient
backwater.
Bray is truly a charming place, and one could find it in one's heart
to forgive the vicar who turned his coat to keep his vicarage. The
real man lived in the reign of Henry VIII. and his successors, and
changed his religious practices in conformity with those of the
sovereign for the time being, turning from Roman Catholic to Reformed
Church, Reformed to Roman Catholic, and back once more with ease
and pliability. In the ballad he is represented as living in the
seventeenth century, and his gymnastics refer to the varying fortunes
of the house of Stuart, and the Romish tendencies of the later kings of
that house. Fuller, with his usual quaintness, remarks of him that he
had seen some martyrs burnt at Windsor and "found this fire too hot for
his tender temper." But one would fain believe it was not altogether
cowardice, but also a love of his delightful village, that made him
so amenable. The little flint and stone tower of the church peeps
at the river over a splendid assortment of evergreens--laurels, holm
oaks, yews, and spruce firs being particularly noticeable--and the old
vicarage with this growth of sheltering trees and its smooth lawn right
down to the water's edge, is certainly a place that one would think
twice about before leaving. The village itself is so irregular that,
tiny as it is, one may get lost in it. There are endless vistas of
gable ends, of bowed timbers, of pretty porches, and worn brick softly
embraced by vine or wistaria; yet even in Bray, new red brick is making
its way. One of the most interesting features is the almshouses, and
if one lands by the hotel, they are reached after only a few minutes'
walk. The exterior is very quaint; large cylindrical yews and hollies,
like roly-poly puddings on end, stand up in stubborn rank before the
worn red brick. The statue of the founder, of an immaculate whiteness,
with the glitter of gilt in the coat-of-arms below, just lightens the
effect. Through an ancient arch one passes to the quadrangle, which
is filled with tiny flower-beds, and surrounded by a low range of red
brick with dormer windows. At the other side is the chapel covered with
ivy, and this, with the little diamond panes and the brightness of the
variegated flower-beds, is home-like and cosy. Yet it must be confessed
that in his well-known picture, "The Harbour of Refuge," admittedly
taken from Bray, Frederick Walker, the artist, has greatly improved
the scene with artistic licence. The raised terrace at the side, the
greater width of the quadrangle, the smooth green lawn and sheltering
central tree in his picture, are far more harmonious and beautiful than
the reality.
Bray is a very popular haunt with artists and boating people. In
summer the George Hotel cannot take in all its visitors, and beds are
hired all over the village, consequently, anyone wishing to spend some
weeks in Bray must make arrangements well beforehand. This is not to
be wondered at, because, as well as its own attractions, it is within
easy reach of Maidenhead and the delights beyond, and its unspoilt
quaintness makes it ideal to stay in. Long may Bray remain as it is,
unaltered and a tiny village.