Cheered by the good wishes and smiling countenances of the groups through which they passed, and enlivened by the sunshine, the party entered the church. Peter Pokerich and the fair Thomasine, with Mr. Rathbone and Mrs. Nettleship, were already standing beside the altar. The young couple advanced, and took the central place, and the church was instantly crowded with spectators.
The service was admirably performed by a venerable clergyman — an old and valued friend of Abel’s; and at its close the concourse issued from the church, dividing into two lines, so as to allow a passage for the wedding train. As soon as the happy couple were seen issuing hand in hand from the Gothic portal of the old church, a loud and joyous shout was raised by the assemblage, a couple of guns were fired on board the lighter, and the church bells rang forth a joyous peal.
It was a heart-cheering sight; and many a breast throbbed, — and many an eye grew moist at beholding it. And plenty of spectators there were. The whole of the area before the church was filled, and the windows and towers of the old archiepiscopal palace were studded with faces. The little flower-girls now stepped forward, and strewed their fragrant offerings in the path of the happy pair, who walked on amid the continued cheers of the bystanders.
A little behind Randulph, on the right, walked Trussell, who, excited by the general enthusiasm, had placed his hat on his cane, and waved it to the crowd. Near him came Abel and Miss Wilbraham, the former with a glowing smile on his countenance, such as Mr. Jukes himself never remembered to have witnessed. After them walked Sir Norfolk Salusbury and Mrs. Crew.
Next in order came Mr. and Mrs. Pokerich, the latter of whom thought it decorous to turn aside her pretty face from the ardent gaze of her enamoured little lord. Lastly came Mr. and Mrs. Rathbone, whose appearance did not seem greatly to interest the spectators. Sir Bulkeley Price had posted himself on the left of the church door, to watch the wedding train pass by, and to wait the coming forth of the clergyman.
As Randulph advanced through the crowd, Jacob Post stepped forward, and holding out his rough, honest hand to him, said in a voice the sincerity of which could not be doubted: —
“God bless you, sir, and your lovely bride, and may you know years of uninterrupted happiness!”
“And take my blessing too,” said Mr. Jukes, likewise extending his hand. “An old man’s good wishes, though he be but a dependent, can do no harm.”
“I thank you both!” cried Randulph, in a voice of emotion; “and my wife thanks you too.”
“I do, — I do,” she replied; “nor do I doubt the fulfilment of your wishes.”
And as she uttered these words, loud and deafening cheers rent the air, and another discharge of guns took place.
In this way, they proceeded to the house, where they were followed by the rest of the party, and presently afterwards by the clergyman and Sir Bulkeley. They all then sat down to an excellent repast.
By desire of his hospitable master, Mr. Jukes invited the other couples and their friends to take refreshments at his house, which, as they delightedly availed themselves of the offer, were served to them in the summer-house overlooking the river; where, while enjoying themselves, they did not forget to drink long life and happiness to Randulph and his bride.
The honeymoon — all the rest of their lives was a honeymoon — was passed by the happy couple in good old-fashioned style, at Lambeth. They then proceeded to Cheshire, accompanied by Trussell and Mrs. Crew, and were soon afterwards followed by Abel, who passed the winter with them.
In due time the prognostications of Mr. Jukes were fulfilled, and Abel displayed no objection to the endearments to two great-nieces and a great-nephew.
Appointed Randulph’s head-gamekeeper, Jacob Post passed the remainder of his days in the service of his new master.
Of the two brothers Beechcroft, Abel was the first to pay the debt of nature, Trussell surviving him two or three years, during which he was a great martyr to the gout. He never, however, lost his temper, except when young Master Randulph accidentally trod on his toe; and then he would swear a round oath, to frighten him, and try to hit at him with his stick, as testy old gentlemen are won’t to do in plays.
Randulph and Hilda almost touched the verge of the present century; and from the anecdotes of one of their descendants, in the third generation, the materials of the present Tale have been collected.
THE END
WINDSOR CASTLE
The historical romance Windsor Castle was serially published in 1842 and blends gothic elements with true events from the life of Henry VIII, at the time of his pursuit of Anne Boleyn and his attempts to divorce Catherine of Aragon. Intertwined with the story are the ghoulish adventures of Herne the Hunter, a legendary fiend that inhabits Windsor woods.
Following the death of Ainsworth’s mother, the author John Forster offered assistance with meeting the deadline for the novel. Forster wrote “I imagine that you will defer the Windsor Castle this month – but should you not do so, I might be of some assistance to you. I have all my Henry VIII books here, and if you told me some particular thing you wanted – it may be horrible conceit – but somehow I think I might be of some beggarly service to you. At all events, in that or lesser matters, try if for old affection’s sake you can discover anything for me to do for you”. Ainsworth however chose to decline Forster’s offer and the novel was published instead in Ainsworth’s Magazine, starting July 1842 and ending in June 1843. It was published by Henry Colburn as a three-decker novel in 1843.
During the initial publication, over 30,000 copies were sold and the work was in high demand, particularly due to its copious and attractive illustrations. It was continually in print until the 1960s, appearing in multiple languages; a French paper Le Messenger carried a translation of the work soon after its original release.
The novel hinges around the events surrounding Henry VIII’s divorce of Catherine of Aragon and his marriage of Anne Boleyn as his second wife. During Henry’s pursuit of Boleyn, the novel describes other couples, including the Earl of Surrey and Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, a match that the King does not favour. However, some of the individuals oppose Henry and his desires for Boleyn, including Thomas Wyat who wants her for himself and Cardinal Wolsey, who unwittingly uses his own daughter, Mabel Lyndwood, to lure Henry away from Boleyn. Eventually, Wolsey turns to revealing Wyat’s desires for Boleyn to the Court, which almost results in Wyat’s execution. Intertwined with the Court is the gothic element of Herne the Hunter, a spirit of Windsor Forest. He is an evil force that seeks to take the souls of various individuals and Henry tries to stop him, though is never able to do so.
The magazine in which the novel first appeared
How the serialisation first appeared
CONTENTS
BOOK I. ANNE BOLEYN
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
BOOK II. HERNE THE HUNTER
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
BOOK III. THE HISTORY OF THE CASTLE
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
BOOK IV. CARDINAL WOLSEY
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
BOOK V. MABEL LYNDWOOD
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
BOOK VI. JANE SEYMOUR
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
The rare monthly serialisation of the novel
WINDSOR CASTLE
“About, about!
Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out.”
SHAKESPEARE, Merry Wives of Windsor
“There is an old tale goes, that Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,
Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg’d horns;
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner:
You have heard of such a spirit; and well you know,
The superstitious idle-headed eld
Receiv’d, and did deliver to our age,
This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.” — ibid
BOOK I. ANNE BOLEYN
CHAPTER I.
Of the Earl of Surrey’s solitary Ramble in the Home Park — Of the Vision beheld by him in the Haunted Dell — And of his Meeting with Morgan Fenwolf, the Keeper, beneath Herne’s Oak.
In the twentieth year of the reign of the right high and puissant King Henry the Eighth, namely, in 1529, on the 21st of April, and on one of the loveliest evenings that ever fell on the loveliest district in England, a fair youth, having somewhat the appearance of a page, was leaning over the terrace wall on the north side of Windsor Castle, and gazing at the magnificent scene before him. On his right stretched the broad green expanse forming the Home Park, studded with noble trees, chiefly consisting of ancient oaks, of which England had already learnt to be proud, thorns as old or older than the oaks, wide-spreading beeches, tall elms, and hollies. The disposition of these trees was picturesque and beautiful in the extreme. Here, at the end of a sweeping vista, and in the midst of an open space covered with the greenest sward, stood a mighty broad-armed oak, beneath whose ample boughs, though as yet almost destitute of foliage, while the sod beneath them could scarcely boast a head of fern, couched a herd of deer. There lay a thicket of thorns skirting a sand-bank, burrowed by rabbits, on this hand grew a dense and Druid-like grove, into whose intricacies the slanting sunbeams pierced; on that extended a long glade, formed by a natural avenue of oaks, across which, at intervals, deer were passing. Nor were human figures wanting to give life and interest to the scene. Adown the glade came two keepers of the forest, having each a couple of buckhounds with them in leash, whose baying sounded cheerily amid the woods. Nearer the castle, and bending their way towards it, marched a party of falconers with their well-trained birds, whose skill they had been approving upon their fists, their jesses ringing as they moved along, while nearer still, and almost at the foot of the terrace wall, was a minstrel playing on a rebec, to which a keeper, in a dress of Lincoln green, with a bow over his shoulder, a quiver of arrows at his back, and a comely damsel under his arm, was listening.
On the left, a view altogether different in character, though scarcely less beautiful, was offered to the gaze. It was formed by the town of Windsor, then not a third of its present size, but incomparably more picturesque in appearance, consisting almost entirely of a long straggling row of houses, chequered black and white, with tall gables, and projecting storeys skirting the west and south sides of the castle, by the silver windings of the river, traceable for miles, and reflecting the glowing hues of the sky, by the venerable College of Eton, embowered in a grove of trees, and by a vast tract of well-wooded and well-cultivated country beyond it, interspersed with villages, churches, old halls, monasteries, and abbeys.
Taking out his tablets, the youth, after some reflection, traced a few lines upon them, and then, quitting the parapet, proceeded slowly, and with a musing air, towards the north west angle of the terrace. He could not be more than fifteen, perhaps not so much, but he was tall and well-grown, with slight though remarkably well-proportioned limbs; and it might have been safely predicted that, when arrived at years of maturity, he would possess great personal vigour. His countenance was full of thought and intelligence, and he had a broad lofty brow, shaded by a profusion of light brown ringlets, a long, straight, and finely-formed nose, a full, sensitive, and well-chiselled mouth, and a pointed chin. His eyes were large, dark, and somewhat melancholy in expression, and his complexion possessed that rich clear brown tint constantly met with in Italy or Spain, though but seldom seen in a native of our own colder clime. His dress was rich, but sombre, consisting of a doublet of black satin, worked with threads of Venetian gold; hose of the same material, and similarly embroidered; a shirt curiously wrought with black silk, and fastened at the collar with black enamelled clasps; a cloak of black velvet, passmented with gold, and lined with crimson satin; a flat black velvet cap, set with pearls and goldsmith’s work, and adorned with a short white plume; and black velvet buskins. His arms were rapier and dagger, both having gilt and graven handles, and sheaths of black velvet.
As he moved along, the sound of voices chanting vespers arose from Saint George’s Chapel; and while he paused to listen to the solemn strains, a door, in that part of the castle used as the king’s privy lodgings, opened, and a person advanced towards him. The new-comer had broad, brown, martial-looking features, darkened still more by a thick coal-black beard, clipped short in the fashion of the time, and a pair of enormous moustachios. He was accoutred in a habergeon, which gleamed from beneath the folds of a russet-coloured mantle, and wore a steel cap in lieu of a bonnet on his head, while a long sword dangled from beneath his cloak. When within a few paces of the youth, whose back was towards him, and who did not hear his approach, he announced himself by a loud cough, that proved the excellence of his lungs, and made the old walls ring again, startling the jackdaws roosting in the battlements.
“What! composing a vesper hymn, my lord of Surrey?” he cried with a laugh, as the other hastily thrust the tablets, which he had hitherto held in his hand, into his bosom. “You will rival Master Skelton, the poet laureate, and your friend Sir Thomas Wyat, too, ere long. But will it please your lord-ship to quit for a moment the society of the celestial Nine, and descend to earth, while I inform you that, acting as your representative, I have given all needful directions for his majesty’s reception to-morrow?”
“You have not failed, I trust, to give orders to the groom of the chambers for the lodging of my fair cousin, Mistress Anne Boleyn, Captain Bouchier?” inquired the Earl of Surrey, with a significant smile.
“Assuredly not, my lord!” replied the other, smiling in his turn. “She will be lodged as royally as if she were Queen of England. Indeed, the queen’s own apartments are assigned her.”
“It is well,” rejoined Surrey. “And you have also provided for the reception of the Pope’s legate, Cardinal Campeggio?”
Bouchier bowed.
“And for Cardinal Wolsey?” pursued the other.
The captain bowed again.
“To save your lordship the necessity of asking any further questions,” he said, “I may state briefly that I have done all as if you had done it yourself.”
“Be a little more particular, captain, I pray you,” said Surrey.
“Willingly, my lord,” replied Bouchier. “In your lord ship’s name, then, as vice-chamberlain, in which character I presented myself, I summoned together the dean and canons of the College of St. George, the usher of the black rod, the governor of the alms-knights, and the whole of the officers of the household, and acquainted them, in a set speech-which, I flatter myself, was quite equal to any that your lordship, with all your poetical talents, c
ould have delivered — that the king’s highness, being at Hampton Court with the two cardinals, Wolsey and Campeggio, debating the matter of divorce from his queen, Catherine of Arragon, proposes to hold the grand feast of the most noble order of the Garter at this his castle of Windsor, on Saint George’s Day — that is to say, the day after to-morrow — and that it is therefore his majesty’s sovereign pleasure that the Chapel of St. George, in the said castle, be set forth and adorned with its richest furniture; that the high altar be hung with arras representing the patron saint of the order on horseback, and garnished with the costliest images and ornaments in gold and silver; that the pulpit be covered with crimson damask, inwrought with flowers-de-luces of gold, portcullises, and roses; that the royal stall be canopied with a rich cloth of state, with a haut-pas beneath it of a foot high; that the stalls of the knights companions be decked with cloth of tissue, with their scutcheons set at the back; and that all be ready at the hour of tierce-hora tertia vespertina, as appointed by his majesty’s own statute — at which time the eve of the feast shall be held to commence.”
“Take breath, captain,” laughed the earl.
“I have no need,” replied Bouchier. “Furthermore, I delivered your lordship’s warrant from the lord chamberlain to the usher of the black rod, to make ready and furnish Saint George’s Hall, both for the supper to-morrow and the grand feast on the following day; and I enjoined the dean and canons of the college, the alms-knights, and all the other officers of the order, to be in readiness for the occasion. And now, having fulfilled my devoir, or rather your lordship’s, I am content to resign my post as vice-chamberlain, to resume my ordinary one, that of your simple gentleman, and to attend you back to Hampton Court whenever it shall please you to set forth.”
The Works of William Harrison Ainsworth Page 329
