Comprising the First
Two Epochs in the History of Windsor
Castle.
Amid the gloom hovering over the early
history of Windsor Castle appear the mighty phantoms
of the renowned King Arthur and his knights, for whom
it is said Merlin reared a magic fortress upon its
heights, in a great hall whereof, decorated with trophies
of war and of the chase, was placed 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 conjure up the old
enchanted castle on the hill, to people its courts
with warlike and lovely forms, its forests with fays
and giants.
Windsor, or Wyndleshore, so called
from the winding banks of the river flowing past it,
was the abode of the ancient Saxon monarchs; and a
legend is related by William of Malmesbury of a woodman
named Wulwin, who being stricken with blindness, and
having visited eighty-seven churches and vainly implored
their tutelary saints for relief, was at last restored
to sight by the touch of Edward the Confessor, who
further enhanced the boon by making him keeper of
his palace at Windsor. But though this story
may be doubted, it is certain that the pious king
above mentioned granted Windsor to the abbot and monks
of Saint Peter at Westminster, “for the hope
of eternal reward, the remission of his sins, the
sins of his father, mother, and all his ancestors,
and to the praise of Almighty God, as a perpetual
endowment and inheritance.”
But the royal donation did not long
remain in the hands of the priesthood. Struck
by the extreme beauty of the spot, “for that
it seemed exceeding profitable and commodious, because
situate so near the Thames, the wood fit for game,
and many other particulars lying there, meet and necessary
for kings yea, a place very convenient for
his reception,” William the Conqueror prevailed
upon Abbot Edwin to accept in exchange for it Wakendune
and Feringes, in Essex, together with three other
tenements in Colchester; and having obtained possession
of the coveted hill, he forthwith began to erect a
castle upon it occupying a space of about
half a hide of land. Around it he formed large
parks, to enable him to pursue his favourite pastime
of hunting; and he enacted and enforced severe laws
for the preservation of the game.
As devoted to the chase as his father,
William Rufus frequently hunted in the forests of
Windsor, and solemnised some of the festivals of the
Church in the castle.
In the succeeding reign namely,
that of Henry the First the castle was
entirely rebuilt and greatly enlarged assuming
somewhat of the character of a palatial residence,
having before been little more than a strong hunting-seat.
The structure then erected in all probability occupied
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 little beyond its form and position.
In 1109 Henry celebrated the feast of Pentecost with
great state and magnificence within the castle.
In 1122 he there espoused his second wife, Adelicia,
daughter of Godfrey, Duke of Louvain; and failing
in obtaining issue by her, assembled the barons at
Windsor, and causing them, together with David, King
of Scotland, his sister Adela, and her son Stephen,
afterwards King of England, to do homage to his daughter
Maud, widow of the Emperor Henry the Fifth.
Proof that Windsor Castle was regarded
as the second fortress in the realm is afforded by
the treaty of peace between the usurper Stephen and
the Empress Maud, in which it is coupled with the Tower
of London under the designation of Mota de Windsor.
At the signing of the treaty it was committed to the
custody of Richard de Lucy, who was continued in the
office of keeper by Henry the Second.
In the reign of this monarch many
repairs were made in the castle, to which a vineyard
was attached the cultivation of the grape
being at this time extensively practised throughout
England. Strange as the circumstance may now
appear, Stow mentions that vines grew in abundance
in the home park in the reign of Richard the Second,
the wine made from them being consumed at the king’s
table, and even sold.
It is related by Fabian that Henry,
stung by the disobedience and ingratitude of his sons,
caused an allegorical picture to be painted, representing
an old eagle assailed by four young ones, which he
placed in one of the chambers of the castle.
When asked the meaning of the device, he replied,
“I am the old eagle, and the four eaglets are
my sons, Who cease not to pursue my death. The
youngest bird, who is tearing out its parent’s
eyes, is my son John, my youngest and best-loved son,
and who yet is the most eager for my destruction.”
On his departure for the holy wars
Richard Coeur de Lion entrusted the government of
the castle to Hugh de Pudsey, Bishop of Durham and
Earl of Northumberland; but a fierce dispute arising
between the warrior-prelate and his ambitious colleague,
William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, he was seized and
imprisoned by the latter, and compelled to surrender
the castle. After an extraordinary display of
ostentation, Longchamp was ousted in his turn.
On the arrival of the news of Richard’s capture
and imprisonment in Austria, the castle was seized
by Prince John; but it was soon afterwards taken possession
of in the king’s behalf by the barons, and consigned
to the custody of Eleanor, the queen-dowager.
In John’s reign the castle became
the scene of a foul and terrible event William de
Braose, a powerful baron, having offended the king,
his wife Maud was ordered to deliver up her son a
hostage for her husband. But instead of complying
with the injunction, she rashly returned for answer “that
she would not entrust her child to the person who could
slay his own nephew.” Upon which the ruthless
king seized her and her son, and enclosing them in
a recess in the wall of the castle, built them up
within it.
Sorely pressed by the barons in 1215,
John sought refuge within the castle, and in the same
year signed the two charters, Magna Charta and Charta
de Foresta, at Runnymede a plain between
Windsor and Staines. A curious account of his
frantic demeanour, after divesting himself of so much
power and extending so greatly the liberties of the
subject, is given by Holinshed: “Having
acted so far contrary to his mind, the king was right
sorrowful in heart, cursed his mother that bare him,
and the hour in which he was born; wishing that he
had received death by violence of sword or knife instead
of natural nourishment. He whetted his 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 such disordered behaviour and furious
gestures he uttered his grief, that the noblemen very
well perceived the inclination of his inward affection
concerning these things before the breaking-up of the
council, and therefore sore lamented the state of
the realm, guessing what would follow of his impatience,
and displeasant taking of the matter.”
The faithless king made an attempt to regain his lost
power, and war breaking out afresh in the following
year, a numerous army, under the command of William
de Nivernois, besieged the castle, which was stoutly
defended by Inglehard de Achie and sixty knights.
The barons, however, learning that John was marching
through Norfolk and Suffolk, and ravaging the country,
hastily raised the siege and advanced to meet him.
But he avoided them, marched to Stamford and Lincoln,
and from thence towards Wales. On his return
from this expedition he was seized with the distemper
of which he died.
Henry the Third was an ardent encourager
of architecture, and his reign marks the second great
epoch in the annals of the castle. In 1223 eight
hundred marks were paid to Engelhard de Cygony, constable
of the castle, John lé Draper, and William
the clerk of Windsor, masters of the works, and others,
for repairs and works within the castle; the latter,
it is conjectured, referring to the erection of a
new great hall within the lower ward, there being
already a hall of small dimensions in the upper court.
The windows of the new building were filled with painted
glass, and at the upper end, upon a raised dais, was
a gilt throne sustaining a statue of the king in his
robes. Within this vast and richly decorated
chamber, in 1240, on the day of the Nativity, an infinite
number of poor persons were collected and fed by the
king’s command.
During the greater part of Henry’s
long and eventful reign the works within the castle
proceeded with unabated activity. Carpenters were
maintained on the royal establishment; the ditch between
the hall and the lower ward was repaired; a new kitchen
was built; the bridges were repaired with timber procured
from the neighbouring forests; certain breaches in
the wall facing the garden were stopped; the fortifications
were surveyed, and the battlements repaired. At
the same time the queen’s chamber was painted
and wainscoted, and iron bars were placed before the
windows of Prince Edward’s chamber. In 1240
Henry commenced building an apartment for his own
use near the wall of the castle, sixty feet long and
twenty-eight high; another apartment for the queen
contiguous to it; and a chapel, seventy feet long and
twenty-eight feet wide, along the same wall, but with
a grassy space between it and the royal apartments.
The chapel, as appears from an order to Walter de
Grey, Archbishop of York, had a Galilee and a cloister,
a lofty wooden roof covered with lead, and a stone
turret in front holding three or four bells.
Withinside it was made to appear like stone-work with
good ceiling and painting, and it contained four gilded
images.
This structure is supposed to have
been in existence, under the designation of the Old
College Church, in the latter part of the reign of
Henry the Seventh, by whom it was pulled down to make
way for the tomb-house. Traces of its architecture
have been discovered by diligent antiquarian research
in the south ambulatory of the Dean’s Cloister,
and in the door behind the altar in St. George’s
Chapel, the latter of which is conceived to have formed
the principal entrance to the older structure, and
has been described as exhibiting “one of the
most beautiful specimens which time and innovation
have respected of the elaborate ornamental work of
the period.”
In 1241 Henry commenced operations
upon the outworks of the castle, and the three towers
on the western side of the lower ward now
known as the Curfew, the Garter, and the Salisbury
Towers were erected by him. He also
continued the walls along the south side of the lower
ward, traces of the architecture of the period being
discoverable in the inner walls of the houses of the
alms-knights as far as the tower now bearing his name.
From thence it is concluded that the ramparts ran along
the east side of the upper ward to a tower occupying
the site of the Wykeham or Winchester Tower.
The three towers at the west end of
the lower ward, though much dilapidated, present unquestionable
features of the architecture of the thirteenth century.
The lower storey of the Curfew Tower, which has been
but little altered, consists of a large vaulted chamber,
twenty-two feet wide, with walls of nearly thirteen
feet in thickness, and having arched recesses terminated
by loopholes. The walls are covered with the
inscriptions of prisoners who have been confined within
it. The Garter Tower, though in a most ruinous
condition, exhibits high architectural beauty in its
moulded arches and corbelled passages. The Salisbury
Tower retains only externally, and on the side towards
the town, its original aspect. The remains of
a fourth tower are discernible in the Governor of
the Alms-Knights’ Tower; and Henry the Third’s
Tower, as before observed, completes what remains
of the original chain of fortifications.
On the 24th of November 1244 Henry
issued a writ enjoining “the clerks of the works
at Windsor to work day and night to wainscot the high
chamber 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 24th occurring on a
Tuesday, only two days were allowed for the task],
when we come there, with boards radiated and coloured,
so that nothing be found reprehensible in that wainscot;
and also to make at each gable of the said chamber
one glass window, on the outside of the inner window
of each gable, so that when the inner window shall
be closed the glass windows may be seen outside.”
The following year the works were
suspended, but they were afterwards resumed and continued,
with few interruptions; the keep was new constructed;
a stone bench was fixed in the wall near the grass-plot
by the king’s chamber; a bridge was thrown across
the ditch to the king’s garden, which lay outside
the walls; a barbican was erected, to which a portcullis
was subsequently attached; the bridges were defended
by strong iron chains; the old chambers in the upper
ward were renovated; a conduit and lavatory were added;
and a fountain was constructed in the garden.
In this reign, in all probability,
the Norman Tower, which now forms a gateway 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 the First’s
time; and many noble and gallant captives have left
mementoes of their 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
gave birth to a daughter during her stay at the castle.
In 1264, during the contest between
Henry and the barons, the valiant Prince Edward, his
son, returning from a successful expedition into Wales,
surprised the citizens of London, and carrying off
their military chest, in which was much treasure,
retired to Windsor Castle and strongly garrisoned
it. The Queen Eleanor, his mother, would fain
have joined him there, but she was driven back by the
citizens at London Bridge, and compelled to take sanctuary
in the palace of the Bishop of London, at St. Paul’s.
Compelled at length to surrender the
castle to the barons, and to depart from it with his
consort, Eleanor of Castile, the brave prince soon
afterwards recovered it, but was again forced to deliver
it up to Simon de Montford, Earl of Leicester, who
appointed Geoffrey de Langele governor. But though
frequently wrested from him at this period, Windsor
Castle was never long out of Henry’s possession;
and in 1265 the chief citizens of London were imprisoned
till they had paid the heavy fine imposed upon them
for their adherence to Simon de Montford, who had been
just before slain at the battle of Evesham.
During this reign a terrific storm
of wind and thunder occurred, which tore up several
great trees in the park, shook the castle, and blew
down a 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 a numerous offspring,
were born at Windsor; and as he frequently resided
at the castle, the town began to increase in importance
and consideration. By a charter granted in 1276
it was created a free borough, and various privileges
were conferred on its inhabitants. Stow tells
us that in 1295, on the last day of February, there
suddenly arose such a fire in the castle of Windsor
that many offices were therewith consumed, and many
goodly images, made to beautify the buildings, defaced
and deformed.
Edward the Second, and his beautiful
but perfidious queen, Isabella of France, made Windsor
Castle their frequent abode; and here, on the 13th
day of November 1312 at forty minutes past five in
the morning, was born a prince, over whose nativity
the wizard Merlin must have presided. Baptized
within the old chapel by the name of Edward, this prince
became afterwards the third monarch of the name, and
the greatest, and was also styled, from the place
of his birth, Edward of Windsor.