I.
Comprising the First Two Epochs in the History of Windsor Castle.
Amid the gloom hovering over the early history of Windsor Castle appearthe mighty phantoms of the renowned King Arthur and his knights, forwhom it is said Merlin reared a magic fortress upon its heights, in agreat hall whereof, decorated with trophies of war and of the chase, wasplaced the famous Round Table. But if the antique tale is now worn out,and no longer part of our faith, it is pleasant at least to record it,and surrendering ourselves for a while to the sway of fancy, to conjureup the old enchanted castle on the hill, to people its courts withwarlike and lovely forms, its forests with fays and giants.
Windsor, or Wyndleshore, so called from the winding banks of the riverflowing past it, was the abode of the ancient Saxon monarchs; and alegend is related by William of Malmesbury of a woodman named Wulwin,who being stricken with blindness, and having visited eighty-sevenchurches and vainly implored their tutelary saints for relief, was atlast restored to sight by the touch of Edward the Confessor, who furtherenhanced the boon by making him keeper of his palace at Windsor. Butthough this story may be doubted, it is certain that the pious kingabove mentioned granted Windsor to the abbot and monks of Saint Peter atWestminster, "for the hope of eternal reward, the remission of his sins,the sins of his father, mother, and all his ancestors, and to the praiseof Almighty God, as a perpetual endowment and inheritance."
But the royal donation did not long remain in the hands of thepriesthood. Struck by the extreme beauty of the spot, "for that itseemed exceeding profitable and commodious, because situate so near theThames, the wood fit for game, and many other particulars lying there,meet and necessary for kings--yea, a place very convenient for hisreception," William the Conqueror prevailed upon Abbot Edwin to acceptin exchange for it Wakendune and Feringes, in Essex, together with threeother tenements in Colchester; and having obtained possession of thecoveted hill, he forthwith began to erect a castle upon it--occupying aspace of about half a hide of land. Around it he formed large parks, toenable him to pursue his favourite pastime of hunting; and he enactedand enforced severe laws for the preservation of the game.
As devoted to the chase as his father, William Rufus frequently huntedin the forests of Windsor, and solemnised some of the festivals of theChurch in the castle.
In the succeeding reign--namely, that of Henry the First--the castlewas entirely rebuilt and greatly enlarged--assuming somewhat of thecharacter of a palatial residence, having before been little more thana strong hunting-seat. The structure then erected in all probabilityoccupied the same site as the upper and lower wards of the present pile;but nothing remains of it except perhaps the keep, and of that littlebeyond its form and position. In 1109 Henry celebrated the feast ofPentecost with great state and magnificence within the castle. In 1122he there espoused his second wife, Adelicia, daughter of Godfrey, Dukeof Louvain; and failing in obtaining issue by her, assembled the baronsat Windsor, and causing them, together with David, King of Scotland,his sister Adela, and her son Stephen, afterwards King of England, to dohomage to his daughter Maud, widow of the Emperor Henry the Fifth.
Proof that Windsor Castle was regarded as the second fortress in therealm is afforded by the treaty of peace between the usurper Stephen andthe Empress Maud, in which it is coupled with the Tower of London underthe designation of Mota de Windsor. At the signing of the treaty it wascommitted to the custody of Richard de Lucy, who was continued in theoffice of keeper by Henry the Second.
In the reign of this monarch many repairs were made in the castle, towhich a vineyard was attached--the cultivation of the grape being atthis time extensively practised throughout England. Strange as thecircumstance may now appear, Stow mentions that vines grew in abundancein the home park in the reign of Richard the Second, the wine made fromthem being consumed at the king's table, and even sold.
It is related by Fabian that Henry, stung by the disobedience andingratitude of his sons, caused an allegorical picture to be painted,representing an old eagle assailed by four young ones, which he placedin one of the chambers of the castle. When asked the meaning of thedevice, he replied, "I am the old eagle, and the four eaglets aremy sons, Who cease not to pursue my death. The youngest bird, whois tearing out its parent's eyes, is my son John, my youngest andbest-loved son, and who yet is the most eager for my destruction."
On his departure for the holy wars Richard Coeur de Lion entrusted thegovernment of the castle to Hugh de Pudsey, Bishop of Durham and Earl ofNorthumberland; but a fierce dispute arising between the warrior-prelateand his ambitious colleague, William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, he wasseized and imprisoned by the latter, and compelled to surrender thecastle. After an extraordinary display of ostentation, Longchamp wasousted in his turn. On the arrival of the news of Richard's capture andimprisonment in Austria, the castle was seized by Prince John; but itwas soon afterwards taken possession of in the king's behalf by thebarons, and consigned to the custody of Eleanor, the queen-dowager.
In John's reign the castle became the scene of a foul and terrible eventWilliam de Braose, a powerful baron, having offended the king, his wifeMaud was ordered to deliver up her son a hostage for her husband.But instead of complying with the injunction, she rashly returned foranswer--"that she would not entrust her child to the person who couldslay his own nephew." Upon which the ruthless king seized her and herson, and enclosing them in a recess in the wall of the castle, builtthem up within it.
Sorely pressed by the barons in 1215, John sought refuge within thecastle, and in the same year signed the two charters, Magna Charta andCharta de Foresta, at Runnymede--a plain between Windsor and Staines. Acurious account of his frantic demeanour, after divesting himself ofso much power and extending so greatly the liberties of the subject, isgiven by Holinshed:--"Having acted so far contrary to his mind, the kingwas right sorrowful in heart, cursed his mother that bare him, andthe hour in which he was born; wishing that he had received death byviolence of sword or knife instead of natural nourishment. He whettedhis teeth, and did bite now on one staff, now on another, as he walked,and oft brake the same in pieces when he had done, and with suchdisordered behaviour and furious gestures he uttered his grief, thatthe noblemen very well perceived the inclination of his inward affectionconcerning these things before the breaking-up of the council, andtherefore sore lamented the state of the realm, guessing what wouldfollow of his impatience, and displeasant taking of the matter."The faithless king made an attempt to regain his lost power, and warbreaking out afresh in the following year, a numerous army, under thecommand of William de Nivernois, besieged the castle, which was stoutlydefended by Inglehard de Achie and sixty knights. The barons, however,learning that John was marching through Norfolk and Suffolk, andravaging the country, hastily raised the siege and advanced to meet him.But he avoided them, marched to Stamford and Lincoln, and from thencetowards Wales. On his return from this expedition he was seized with thedistemper of which he died.
Henry the Third was an ardent encourager of architecture, and his reignmarks the second great epoch in the annals of the castle. In 1223 eighthundred marks were paid to Engelhard de Cygony, constable of the castle,John le Draper, and William the clerk of Windsor, masters of the works,and others, for repairs and works within the castle; the latter, it isconjectured, referring to the erection of a new great hall within thelower ward, there being already a hall of small dimensions in the uppercourt. The windows of the new building were filled with painted glass,and at the upper end, upon a raised dais, was a gilt throne sustaininga statue of the king in his robes. Within this vast and richly decoratedchamber, in 1240, on the day of the Nativity, an infinite number of poorpersons were collected and fed by the king's command.
During the greater part of Henry's long and eventful reign the workswithin the castle proceeded with unabated activity. Carpenters weremaintained on the royal establishment; the ditch between the hall andthe lower ward was repaired; a new kitchen was built; the bridges wererepaired with ti
mber procured from the neighbouring forests; certainbreaches in the wall facing the garden were stopped; the fortificationswere surveyed, and the battlements repaired. At the same time thequeen's chamber was painted and wainscoted, and iron bars were placedbefore the windows of Prince Edward's chamber. In 1240 Henry commencedbuilding an apartment for his own use near the wall of the castle,sixty feet long and twenty-eight high; another apartment for the queencontiguous to it; and a chapel, seventy feet long and twenty-eight feetwide, along the same wall, but with a grassy space between it and theroyal apartments. The chapel, as appears from an order to Walter deGrey, Archbishop of York, had a Galilee and a cloister, a lofty woodenroof covered with lead, and a stone turret in front holding three orfour bells. Withinside it was made to appear like stone-work with goodceiling and painting, and it contained four gilded images.
This structure is supposed to have been in existence, under thedesignation of the Old College Church, in the latter part of the reignof Henry the Seventh, by whom it was pulled down to make way for thetomb-house. Traces of its architecture have been discovered by diligentantiquarian research in the south ambulatory of the Dean's Cloister, andin the door behind the altar in St. George's Chapel, the latter ofwhich is conceived to have formed the principal entrance to the olderstructure, and has been described as exhibiting "one of the mostbeautiful specimens which time and innovation have respected of theelaborate ornamental work of the period."
In 1241 Henry commenced operations upon the outworks of the castle, andthe three towers on the western side of the lower ward--now known as theCurfew, the Garter, and the Salisbury Towers--were erected by him. Healso continued the walls along the south side of the lower ward, tracesof the architecture of the period being discoverable in the inner wallsof the houses of the alms-knights as far as the tower now bearing hisname. From thence it is concluded that the ramparts ran along the eastside of the upper ward to a tower occupying the site of the Wykeham orWinchester Tower.
The three towers at the west end of the lower ward, though muchdilapidated, present unquestionable features of the architecture of thethirteenth century. The lower storey of the Curfew Tower, which has beenbut little altered, consists of a large vaulted chamber, twenty-two feetwide, with walls of nearly thirteen feet in thickness, and havingarched recesses terminated by loopholes. The walls are covered with theinscriptions of prisoners who have been confined within it. The GarterTower, though in a most ruinous condition, exhibits high architecturalbeauty in its moulded arches and corbelled passages. The Salisbury Towerretains only externally, and on the side towards the town, its originalaspect. The remains of a fourth tower are discernible in the Governorof the Alms-Knights' Tower; and Henry the Third's Tower, asbefore observed, completes what remains of the original chain offortifications.
On the 24th of November 1244 Henry issued a writ enjoining "the clerksof the works at Windsor to work day and night to wainscot the highchamber upon the wall of the castle near our chapel in the upper bailey,so that it may be ready and properly wainscoted on Friday next [the 24thoccurring on a Tuesday, only two days were allowed for the task], whenwe come there, with boards radiated and coloured, so that nothing befound reprehensible in that wainscot; and also to make at each gable ofthe said chamber one glass window, on the outside of the inner windowof each gable, so that when the inner window shall be closed the glasswindows may be seen outside."
The following year the works were suspended, but they were afterwardsresumed and continued, with few interruptions; the keep was newconstructed; a stone bench was fixed in the wall near the grass-plot bythe king's chamber; a bridge was thrown across the ditch to the king'sgarden, which lay outside the walls; a barbican was erected, to whicha portcullis was subsequently attached; the bridges were defended bystrong iron chains; the old chambers in the upper ward were renovated;a conduit and lavatory were added; and a fountain was constructed in thegarden.
In this reign, in all probability, the Norman Tower, which now forms agateway between the middle and the upper ward, was erected. This tower,at present allotted to the house keeper of the castle, Lady Mary Fox,was used as a prison-lodging during the civil wars of Charles theFirst's time; and many noble and gallant captives have left mementoes oftheir loyalty and ill fate upon its walls.
In 1260 Henry received a visit to Windsor from his daughter Margaret,and her husband, Alexander the Third, King of Scotland. The queen gavebirth to a daughter during her stay at the castle.
In 1264, during the contest between Henry and the barons, the valiantPrince Edward, his son, returning from a successful expedition intoWales, surprised the citizens of London, and carrying off theirmilitary chest, in which was much treasure, retired to Windsor Castleand strongly garrisoned it. The Queen Eleanor, his mother, would fainhave joined him there, but she was driven back by the citizens at LondonBridge, and compelled to take sanctuary in the palace of the Bishop ofLondon, at St. Paul's.
Compelled at length to surrender the castle to the barons, and to departfrom it with his consort, Eleanor of Castile, the brave prince soonafterwards recovered it, but was again forced to deliver it up toSimon de Montford, Earl of Leicester, who appointed Geoffrey de Langelegovernor. But though frequently wrested from him at this period, WindsorCastle was never long out of Henry's possession; and in 1265 the chiefcitizens of London were imprisoned till they had paid the heavy fineimposed upon them for their adherence to Simon de Montford, who had beenjust before slain at the battle of Evesham.
During this reign a terrific storm of wind and thunder occurred, whichtore up several great trees in the park, shook the castle, and blew downa part of the building in which the queen and her family were lodged,but happily without doing them injury.
Four of the children of Edward the First, who was blessed with anumerous offspring, were born at Windsor; and as he frequentlyresided at the castle, the town began to increase in importance andconsideration. By a charter granted in 1276 it was created a freeborough, and various privileges were conferred on its inhabitants. Stowtells us that in 1295, on the last day of February, there suddenly arosesuch a fire in the castle of Windsor that many offices were therewithconsumed, and many goodly images, made to beautify the buildings,defaced and deformed.
Edward the Second, and his beautiful but perfidious queen, Isabella ofFrance, made Windsor Castle their frequent abode; and here, on the 13thday of November 1312 at forty minutes past five in the morning, wasborn a prince, over whose nativity the wizard Merlin must have presided.Baptized within the old chapel by the name of Edward, this prince becameafterwards the third monarch of the name, and the greatest, and was alsostyled, from the place of his birth, EDWARD OF WINDSOR.
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