Standing upon a steep chalk cliff that rises abruptly from the River Thames, Windsor Castle towers above the low-lying river meadows, and, looking beyond the town that clusters round it, gazes proudly over twelve adjacent counties. For more than eight centuries a castle has stood upon this cliff-top, the defensive qualities of such a perfect natural stronghold having appealed to all the royal rulers of England.
In Saxon times the mound was defended by some kind of wooden palisade, which William the Conqueror replaced with stone, nothing of which now remains. Henry II., the first of the Plantagenet Kings, built his palace there, erecting it upon what is known to-day as the Upper Ward, the castle being divided into three distinct sections or tiers. The Upper Ward, situated upon a higher level of the plateau, is separated from the Lower Ward by the Round Tower, which stands upon a mound in the centre.
[pg 12]
Perhaps the most exciting times that the castle ever witnessed took place in the reign of John; certainly one of the most important events in the history of the English people is connected with its grey walls. John had filled the castle with mercenary troops, with which to defend himself against his insurgent barons. Protected by these foreigners, who fought with extreme bravery, the castle sustained two sieges, the only active warfare in which it took any serious part. Owing doubtless to its almost impregnable situation before the days of artillery, it remained calm and secure, however disturbed other parts of the kingdom might be. One summer day in the year 1215 King John, overawed by the great gathering of armed barons within sight of his castle, left his stronghold on the hill, and full of rage rode down to the meadow of Runnymede, near Staines. There he was forced to sign the Great Charter of English Freedom, an action which reduced him to such a pitch of impotent fury that when he reached the castle again, he rolled on the ground, gnawing sticks and straws.
It is to John's son, Henry III., that the present aspect of the castle is due, for though walls and towers have been rebuilt since his time, the general appearance remains the same. He was the first great builder, and beginning early with a reign of over fifty years before him, he was able to carry out his extensive building schemes. Deserting the Upper Ward, where all his predecessors had lived, he built his palace on the Lower plateau, also erecting a chapel on the site of St. George's. Less than a century after his death palace and chapel had vanished, fallen into a rapid decay, so that almost the only records of his work to-day are to be found in the Curfew Tower, and the Cloisters.
[pg 13]
The first King to be born at Windsor was Edward III., who spent great sums upon his palace, practically rebuilding the whole castle. Being a great warrior, loving war and glory, he became enamoured with the idea of founding an Order of Knighthood that should become as illustrious as that of King Arthur, who was believed to have some connection with Windsor. A Round Tower was built upon the mound, to hold the Round Table, and great festivities were held there in 1344, but this Round Table idea forms no part of the great Order—the Order of the Garter—instituted in 1348. It is thought that Froissart confused these two celebrations.
Windsor Castle: Entrance to the Horseshoe Cloisters.
Under the superintendence of William of Wykeham, afterwards the great Bishop of Winchester, but employed by Edward III. as his surveyor of works, the Lower Ward was entirely given up to the service of St. George, the patron saint of the new Order. This involved the building of a new palace, which was erected upon the Upper Ward, hitherto merely walled and left vacant. At the time when these great building schemes were in progress, there were two captive Kings within the castle, for Edward did not entirely devote his energy to palace [pg 14] building, which merely formed a pleasing interlude to the long and ambitious wars which occupied his life. David II. of Scotland had been captured at Neville's Cross in 1346, and ten years later John, the King of France, joined him at Windsor, having fallen to the Black Prince at Poitiers. It is said that Edward, while walking with his prisoners, discussed with them the building of his new palace. They suggested that it would look more regal if it stood upon the Upper Ward, at which Edward cynically remarked that it should be erected at the cost of their ransoms. But as King John's ransom was never paid, and Scotland was too poor a country to provide much even to redeem their King, Edward was obliged to do most of the paying of the bill himself.
Good Queen Philippa, the sweet woman who had been the gentle inspiration of Edward's life, fell ill at Windsor in August, 1369, an illness of which there was "no remedy but death," says Froissart, who writes very sympathetically of her last moments. Edward, the bravest knight in Christendom, stood weeping at her bedside as she whispered to him her last requests, that he should pay her debts, carry on her charities, and be buried beside her. Froissart tells us that "in all her life she did neither in thought, word, nor deed, things whereby to lose her soul." So that he was confident that "the holy angels received her with great joy up to heaven."
During the reign of Henry V., Windsor again became a royal prison-house, Scotland's youthful King, James I., spending about ten years of his life there. He had been captured when quite a lad on his way to France to be educated, and had received a good education at the hands [pg 15] of his captors, who had treated him kindly, allowing him considerable liberty. While at Windsor he met his future queen, then the Lady Joan Beaufort, the daughter of the Earl of Somerset, whom he describes in his poem, "The King's Quair," as "the fairest and freshest youthful flower" he had ever seen. After his release in 1424, they were married in Southwark Cathedral, setting off immediately afterwards for Scotland.
"The Royal Saint," as Henry VI. has been called, did not spend time or money upon his palace at Windsor, but was enthusiastic over the founding of Eton College, which he erected on the opposite bank of the winding river, so that he could see it from his palace windows. In his zealous activity to make this college worthy of the Virgin Mary, in whose honour it had been founded, poor King Henry forgot his kingdom, and found himself deposed long before his schemes were perfected. He lies buried in St. George's Chapel, under a plain stone slab, having been brought thither from Chertsey Abbey by Richard III., who did not care for miracles to be performed at his victim's grave, and preferred to have the body under his own observation.
As a form of penitence for having waded "through slaughter to a throne," Edward IV. is said to have erected the beautiful chapel dedicated to St. George, which replaced the one built by Edward III. One of the finest specimens of pure Perpendicular architecture in England, it is the most impressive and stately building enclosed within the walls of Windsor Castle. Its glorious fan tracery is only rivalled by Henry VIII.'s Chapel at Westminster and King's College Chapel, Cambridge—all three being built during the latter half of the fifteenth century. But the choir, perhaps, attracts [pg 16] more attention than any other part of the chapel, for there are to be found the richly-carved stalls allotted to the use of the Knights of the Order of the Garter. Above each stall is placed the helmet of the Knight, while his splendidly emblazoned banner hangs over it. At his death the helmet and banner are removed, but his gilded brass plate upon the back of the stall remains, so that upon these stalls can be seen the gilded plates of some of the most illustrious names in history.
The succeeding monarchs from Edward IV. to the time of Elizabeth did little either to alter or adorn their palace by the shining Thames. Henry VIII., who was very fond of Windsor and often resided there till he obtained Hampton Court Palace from his great Minister, Cardinal Wolsey, rebuilt the main entrance to the Lower Ward which is known by his name. In the vault beneath the choir of St. George's bluff King Hal found a resting-place beside Jane Seymour, his third wife, but no monument has been raised to his memory.
Almost the only part of the palace which has remained unaltered since its erection is the Royal Library, part of the building facing the North Terrace. Built by Queen Elizabeth as a picture gallery, it is a fine specimen of a Tudor room, with a beautiful ceiling and a handsome stone chimney-piece. It is said that the "Merry Wives of Windsor" was first performed in this gallery, the play having been written in a fortnight at the Queen's command that Shakespeare should write a play about Sir John Falstaff in love. The Virgin Queen is also responsible for the North Terrace, on to which the gallery opened.
WINDSOR CASTLE
Has been a stronghold of importance since Saxon times. St. George's Chapel,
whose long roof-line can be seen in the picture, was built by Edward IV.
During the Civil War the castle was held by the Parliamentary forces, whose mere presence behind the [pg 17] strong walls was sufficient to repel Prince Rupert, Charles I.'s headstrong nephew, who had hoped with a small body of horse to surprise the castle. No further attempt was made by the Royalists to capture the royal fortress, to which King Charles was brought as a prisoner in December, 1648. For three years the unhappy King had been a captive, driven from prison to prison, Windsor being his last resting-place before his trial and death in London. Charles must have become aware that dangers were thickening round him, when, having refused to admit Denbigh bearing the last overtures of the Army, all ceremonies of State were omitted, his meals no longer being served to him on bended knee. After the tragedy at Whitehall, the body of the King was brought to Windsor and buried hurriedly one snowy February morning, in the vault below the choir, by the side of Henry VIII. At the Restoration ￡70,000 was voted by the Parliament to erect a fitting memorial, but for some unexplained reason his coffin could not be found, though two of the Lords who had carried his body to the grave were still living. Though the leaden coffin was identified in 1813, no monument has yet been raised to the most unfortunate if also the most unwise of British sovereigns.
His son, Charles II., employed Sir Christopher Wren to make additions to the palace. Much of this work still remains practically as it was in the days of the Merry Monarch, for whose dining-room (now called the State Ante-room) Verrio painted the ceiling and Grinling Gibbons carved the walls.
No monarch is more intimately associated with Windsor than George III., who loved the place which had been cordially disliked and neglected by his two [pg 18] predecessors. So complete had been the neglect, that the castle was quite unfit for habitation, obliging the Royal Family, during the process of repairs, to live in an ugly stuccoed building known as the Queen's Lodge, built on the site of the present royal stables. Owing to the minute chronicle of their daily events in the diary of Fanny Burney, we know exactly what the good commonplace King and Queen did and said during their residence at Windsor. So much had Queen Charlotte admired "Evelina," that she thought no greater honour could be done to the gifted authoress than to make her a dresser to her royal self, a condescension which almost overwhelmed shy Fanny Burney, who accepted the post, little dreaming of the drudgery it entailed. Everything went by routine in the Court life: the same things were done every day at precisely the same time they were done the day before, with a monotony which Thackeray declares must have rendered the life, frugal and virtuous as it was, stupid to a degree which he shuddered to contemplate. Poor King George spent the last ten years of his life, hopelessly insane and quite blind, confined in rooms overlooking the North Terrace, and was buried in the new tomb-house which he had cut in the solid chalk, under what is now known as the Albert Memorial Chapel.
George IV. carried on the repairs commenced by his father, living meanwhile in a lodge in the park. Over a million pounds was spent upon the alterations and furnishing of the royal apartments. When Sir Jeffry Wyattville, the architect to whom the work had been entrusted, had completed his task, Windsor Castle appeared exactly as it does to-day. The walls and [pg 19] towers had been repaired and refaced, the brick buildings within the walls had been cleared away, the Round Tower raised by forty feet so that it dominated the whole pile, and the present State apartments built on the south and eastern sides of the Upper Ward.
Though Windsor Castle cannot claim so fascinating or romantic a history as that of other royal palaces, yet it can boast that while its more picturesque rivals have either vanished or ceased their careers as palaces, it alone remains a royal residence with a story stretching back to the Normans. Majestic in its calm serenity, it remains, as Leigh Hunt used to say, "a place to receive monarchs in."