Royal Windsor

Front matter

ROYAL WINDSOR VOL. EOYAL WINDSOR WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON VOLUME IV. LONDON : HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1880. All Rights reserved. LONDON: PRINTED BY STKANGEWATS AND SONS, Tower Street, Upper St. Martin's Lane. CONTENTS OF THE FOURTH VOLUME. CHAP. PAGE I. HOUSE OF STUART ..... 1 II. THE LITTLE PARK ..... 10 III. THE QUEEN'S COURT ..... 19 IV. THE KING'S KNIGHTS .... 30 V. SPURIOUS PEACE 41 VI. KING CHRISTIERN 52 VII. A CATHOLIC DEAN 62 vni. APOSTASY 71 rx. expulsion ...... 79 X. FOREST RIGHTS ...... 89 XI. BOOK OF SPORTS ..... 98 XII. WINDSOR CROSS . . . . . .108 XIII. IN THE FOREST 119 XIV. WINDSOR SEIZED ..... 126 XV. UNDER THE KEEP 135 XVI. AT BAY CONTENTS OF THE FOURTH VOLUME, VI CHAP. PAGE XVII. FEUDAL CHURCH 154 XVIII. PARLEYING I"** XIX. ROUNDHEADS . . . • • .174 XX.

CAVALIER PRISONERS . . • .183 XXI. HEAD-QUARTERS 192 XXII. THE NEW MODEL ..... 201 XXIII. LAST DAYS OF ROYALTY . . . .211 XXIV. SAINTS IN COUNCIL ..... 221 XXV. CHANGING SIDES 231 XXVI. BAGSHOT LODGE 242 XXVII. AT LENGTH 251 XXVIII. CUTTING DOWN 259 XXIX. WINDSOR UNCROWNED .... 269 XXX. A ' MERRY ' CÆSAR 279 XXXI. WINDSOR CATHOLIC 289 XXXII. THE CATASTROPHE 300 XXXIII. DOMESTIC LIFE 312 XXXIV. HOME 323 INDEX

Chapter I. House Of Stuart

1603. The Divine Catastrophe of the house of Stuart — to revive a famous phrase — covers the history of Windsor Castle, from the coming in of James the First, to the expulsion of his male descendants, in the persons of James the Second, and the wandering prince whose followers called him James the Third. It is the tale of an attempt to govern England for tke benefit of a party and a sect. Through all this drama, Windsor was the camp, the council-chamber, and the head-quarters of events. Here, the government of that party and sect was framed, and here the government of that party and sect was overthrown. VOL. IV. B James Stuart, sixth in descent from that Scottish prince who had sung his love-lay in the Devil's tower, was third in descent from that Margaret Tudor who had been sent to Stirling in the hope of some day placing over one head the Scottish and English crowns.

Thanks to Elizabeth's sacrifice, he came in like a son succeeding to his family estate; not a single shot being fired — hardly a single voice being raised — against his coming in. Some prudent men, like Raleigh, had dreamt of making terms with him ; but the exuberant loyalty of his people had disdained to ask for either oath or bond. He came in free. Un happily he was a man unfit for such a trust. Ignorant of England, he mistook the times in which he lived, thinking they were ebbing back when they were flowing on. In Bacon's words, he was a prince, not of the future, but of the past. After ambling round his capital, he arrived at Windsor, where he settled in the royal house ; to wait the coming of his wife, to hold a festival of St. George, to entertain ambassadors from foreign powers, and fix the principles on which he meant to reign.

Windsor delighted him, not because the air was sweet, the pile extensive, and the landscape wide, HOUSE OF STUART. so much as because the towers were ancient, and the game was plentiful. In roaming through long galleries he could dream of the middle ages, and imagine himself a feudal king. The park was handy, and well stocked. Though idle, he could get up early to enjoy his sport. Not that he cantered, like Elizabeth, after stags ; still less, like Henry, after wild boar. His pleasure was to shuffle after conies with a stick, or bring down partridges with a hawk ; he had no nerve for iroiiw at the wilder £ame. In spite of some good qualities, James was a poor pretender to the name of man. His ways were hard to bear, even by those who clung to him for bread. He never washed ; in eating, he forgot his stomach ; and in drinking, easily lost his legs.

Coarse jests were current at his board, and in his closet ; filth like that which Jonson was not ashamed to set before him on the Windsor stage. Ladies who saw him at table for the first time, turned from the sight in shame. Men smiled and shrugged their shoulders, saying they must make the best of a bad thing. In spite of his behaviour, he had reading enough to chop logic ; wit enough to quirk and pun. Divinity was his weakness ; but he liked to tackle policy, and peer into the secrets of medicine. When tired of chasing rabbits and tippling whisky, he sat down and wrote, under the idea that his pen was master of both prose and rhyme. Few critics praised his style, yet he was sometimes shrewd of phrase ; and though his verses grated and spluttered, they were not more rugged than the rhymes produced by other singers beyond the Tweed.

A lenient judge pronounced him a learned fool. If bred in some lonely manse, and held to duty in his native dale, he might have left behind him the name of a canny and a clever man. His misery was that he was born to thrones, and that he came to Windsor in the days of Shakespere and Bacon to occupy Elizabeth's place. Down to the hour of his arrival in Windsor, his life had been a daily lie. Born of a catholic mother, christened by a catholic priest, and swaddled by a catholic nurse, he had been driven by policy to conceal his creed, to sit under Calvinist preachers, and appear a docile pupil of the Kirk. Hypocrisy had sunk into his soul. Wien thinking of Windsor, he had fancied that, on reaching the sanctuary of St. George, he would be free to speak his mind, and even to impose his views on other folk, as had been done by Cardinal Pole.

But Cecil warned him not to march too fast. England disliked extremes. HOUSE OF STUART. Opposed no less to the school of Parsons than to the school of Brown, a great majority of the English people only wanted to live in peace ; to till their soil and weave their cloth, to press their apples and net their shores, imscared by any foreign prince ; to woo and wed, bring up their youngsters, and hear the gospel preached, without the license of a foreign priest. That was the temper of four in five of his new subjects. But if roused by menaces of either prince or pope, they would be up in arms. The king, thus warned, held back in fear ; but only for a little while. His own opinions would have startled people in the days of Edward the Third. He held that England was a feudal country, which he had a right to govern as a feudal king.

This right in crown and sceptre he held to be ' divine.' All men except himself saw clearly that the reign of feudal kings was over. Henry and Eliza beth had done their work, and closed their epochs. Freer times were coming in ; the sword was yielding to the law. No theory could stay the comingin of light. The dawn had come, with liberty in her wake. No power on earth could force them back. Under a national prince, liberty might have entered on her kingdom by some other path than over battle-fields and scaffolds ; but she would have come as certainly as light succeeds to darkness, and maturity succeeds to youth. The seeds of change had long ago been sown ; here, in the poet's prison; there, at the martyr's stake ; sown by men like [Surrey in the Norman tower, by men like Testwood under the Castle wall.

A later crop was being sown, in fields less tragic to the eye, but not less fruitful to the mind ; here, by a poet in the queen's [gallery ; there, by a student on the queen's terrace ; here again, by a state-founder in the queen's ante-room. In plays, in tractates, in sea-adventures, this new crop of change was beinggsown ; and every man in Wind sor and out of Windsor saw this preparation for a future harvest, save the king. In passing from the Tudor tower along the terrace to the Little park, James might have read the evidence of change. His castle was a type of feudal things, a pile of stones which every one was trying to preserve ; yet Windsor Castle, like the lowlier structures in the hollow, was submitting to the laws of growth. Where was the Plantagenet fortress, with solid front of rock butting above a rugged scarp?

That front was broken by the HOUSE OF STUART. Private stair, and brightened by the Tudor tower. That scarp, once steep enough to defy assault, was levelled for a lady's walk. Children were playing on the slope. Formerly a Norman stronghold, Windsor was becoming an English home. From Berwick to Windsor, James might have seen these signs of growth ; but he possessed no skill in reading histories in stone. Under his eyes, heroic rule lay dead, never to revive until the English race has perished from the earth. Free thought was won. Free thought was passing into free speech, and tending towards free act. Models of free states were being sought ; here — in the past — in Greece, in Palestine, in Rome ; there— in the mind of man — in Utopia, in Arcadia, in Bensalem. Some of the greatest intellects in England were projecting, and describing, these models of free states.

On hearing of such researches, James exclaimed in wonder, ' Hech ! What are they about ? Free states ! Free states agree with monarchy as mickle as the de'il agrees wi' God.' James marvelled all the more at these intellectual exercises, since he had himself put forth a tract, in which he had laid down his theories of public law as limited by kingly right. Princes, he had told the world, are like to gods, who never can be judged by men. A race apart, they have been chosen and anointed for their seats. By a divine commission, older than the oldest church, higher than the highest court, they have a right to lay their hands on what they want. All the fantastic theories of Filmer, Fern, and other sycophants, appeared on James's page. Denying history, he said the crown can never be forfeited by a reigning prince.

In spite of Rufus, John, Bolingbroke, and Richmond, he declared that the line of English kings can never be changed. Statutes notwithstanding, he asserted that kings could tax and toll as pleased them ; that the soil, and all that grows on it, were theirs : vineyard and pasture, farmstead and granary, young man and maiden. Kings, he stated, could do no wrong, and must not be accused of wrong. When they seemed harsh, their subjects must have patience. Even when they seemed criminal, their punishment must be left to Heaven. Kings, he maintained, were above the law. No earthly court had power to try, no earthly judge to sentence, an anointed prince. To James, this reasoning was complete : the earth is the Lord's ; kings are the Lord's anointed ; therefore the earth is theirs. nOUSE OF STUART.

In no long time this syllogism, borrowed from his pages by the ' Saints,' was turned with a dramatic suddenness against his house. Few readers had seen the king's tract, and those who glanced at his theories only laughed. That anybody in his senses would attempt to put them into practice, no one dreamt. But James, who was already sending secret emissaries to the Pope, made haste to show that he was ruling as a feudal prince. Of his own will, without consent of lords and commons, he revived, by proclamation, the Forest Laws — his first step on the road which led to the Divine Catastrophe of his house.

Chapter II. The Little Park

1603. James introduced his feudal law at Windsor by enclosing the Little Park. Two causes raised in him the wish to close this park. First, the townsmen — who, like Ford and Page, walked over his grass with dog and gun, and cleared off some of that smaller game which he most of all loved to hunt ; second, the strangers — who, like Nym and Pistol, hung about the stands, and laughed at his sport of racing after rabbits with a trail of gentlemen at his heels. By locking his park-gates he expected to preserve his conies, and to silence his critics in the tavern yards. Shut out that mob of burgesses and tramps, and who, save his own keepers, would be able to see his sport ? Who, save his own butlers, would have a chance of counting the contents of his bag ? THE LITTLE TAUK. East of the Castle, on a ridge of chalk, ran the Little Park — a high and lonely stretch of grass and trees, looking into the deer-course and across the river, but unseen from any other site except the Castle leads.

It was a park, and something more : the favourite hunting - ground of Queen Ehzabeth, and the scenery of her ' Merry Wives.' Here stood Herne's oak ; here dropped the Fairy dell. Here ran the elm-walk planted under Eliz abeth's eye. Tree and sward were steeped in a romantic light. Hundreds of visitors came to see the oak and dell by which the elves had danced, while Falstaff roared with pain, and Fenton slipped away with ' sweet Anne Page.' The Little Park was a poetic place. But James cared nothing for the Merry Wives. Shut out these Fords and Pages, Nyms and Pistols, from that ridge, and he might take his sport in peace — supposing always that such burgesses as Ford and Page, such ' loose companions ' as Nym and Pistol, were content to be shut out. Would they retire and make no sign ? These forest laws which James invoked at Windsor were obsolete.

For more than sixty years, no man had been hung for breaking through a fence, or bringing down small game. The code was dead : leaving in the minds of men the memory of a brutal system which had come to be a theme for prank and jest. Turn once more to the ' Merry Wives,' that perfect picture of Windsor thought and feeling at the moment when the Stuart dynasty came in. 'Shallow. — You have beaten my men, killed my deer, broke open my lodge. ' Falstaff. — But not kissed your keeper's daughter. • Shalloio. — Tut ! a pin ! This shall be answered. ' Falstaff. — I will answer it straight — I have done all this. That is now answered. ' Shallow. — The council shall know. 'Falstaff. — You will be laughed at.' Even so ; the atrocious forest laws had come to that. Offences which had once been punished by death, were matters for tavern jests.

Shallow begins and ends with words. Instead of going to the council to 'be laughed at,' he leaves his injuries to umpires : to his parson, to his neighbour Page, and to his host of the Garter. That scene was but a mirror of all rural life. People had for gotten that in other days, to shoot a stag had been regarded as a worse offence than to slay a man. These laws were now to be revived, not in Berkshire only, but in every county of the land, where James possessed a park, or had the usage THE LITTLE PARK. of a park. Nobody was to leap a fence, to snare a rabbit, or to hawk a bird. At first, the yeomen only laughed. Riding across country to cheer the king, halting at roadside inns to drink his health, they heard of this new proclamation, and received it as a joke. Not leap a fence, not catch a bird !

When they were warned to wait and see, they roared in merriment, and drained more beakers to the royal wag. A fence ran round the Little Park, two miles in circuit ; but the pales were only stakes and boards, which every yokel in the town could overleap. Three gates led into the preserves : one gate from the queen's terrace, a second from the deer-course, a third from the market-place. The first path was a private entrance, but the other paths were free. Shakespere, coming up from Datchet Mead, entered by the deer-course. Through the town gate, Falstaff had stolen to Herne's oak, followed by the Merry Wives. The walks and swards were as free to men and maids as they were free to ouphes and elves. No one had ever heard of a time when they were closed. All strangers were allowed to roam about.

But for that freedom, no man would have heard of the Hunter's tree, nor learnt the legend of the Fairy dell. Windsor would have lost one of her greatest charms. Though Queen Elizabeth had hunted in the park, she had never dreamt of shutting her neighbours out. Every lad in Windsor had seen her majesty, bow in hand, standing behind a tree, and bringing down her buck. Under her reign all paths had been open to the holiday-maker with dog and gun. This right of way was not the only right to be disturbed by shutting up the Little Park. Time out of mind poor people had enjoyed the right of fuelling in the park and forest. No statute gave that right, just as no statute gave the right of gleaning in a cornfield ; usage older than the longest memory, forming part of an unwritten code, was taken by the churl and housewife as a right.

No one denied the king his cuttings, but when his yards were stacked, poor people claimed their chips and barks. After the reaper comes the gleaner ; after the woodman comes the churl. By shutting up his park the king might save his rabbits and sell his lops and tops. But could the park be safely closed ? James shrank from the risk of meeting men with dogs and guns ; he shrank still more from the risk of meeting mobs of laundresses and ale-wives. He had a mortal THE LITTLE PARK. 15 dread of seeing an urchin cross his path. A crowd of women searching for their winter fuel would be sure to have some urchins in their wake. They might refuse to run away ; they might accost liim in the park ; they might startle him into fits. Before he ventured to close his park gates, he ordered two experiments to be tried elsewhere, at a perfectly safe distance from the Tudor tower.

Enfield Chase and Brigstoke Park were chosen for these trials. Chase and park were closed under his new rules, and men were sent in to cut down wood, and carry away the tops and lops. If no no one stirred, the king's aggression might be called his right. Some stir was made. At Enfield Chase a mob of women gathered round the carters. Why, these women asked, were they carrying off the poor man's fuel ? For the king's use, replied his men. ' Tish ! ' returned the women, ' the king is not at Enfield lodge.' While living there, they thought he had his claim to fuel from the chase ; but if he chose to lodge elsewhere he had no right to make his penny of their winter fires. Were they to die of cold ? Who ever heard before of barks and twigs being sold by kings ? In former days, when there was too much wood, a portion had been sold ; but then the money had been distributed among the poor.

That was the custom under Good Queen Bess. These hussies spake the truth, and claimed no more than they had always taken for their own. Gleaning and fuelling were relics of a time when hedger and ditcher had a property in the soil. But James, safe in the King's house at Windsor, allowed his case to be urged at Enfield with pike and gun. His troops cleared out the ' rioters.' Many of the jades were sent to prison ; and the churls their husbands sat at their tireless hearths, cursing the strange king and his outlandish rules. At Brigstoke the trial was more serious than at Enfield Chase. This park had been stocked with deer for the king's amusement ; but his majesty said he must have the smaller game preserved. Sheriff and magistrate were ordered to see that his game was neither snared nor killed.

His wood was also to be gathered up and sold. This challenge brought in graziers from the hill side and butchers from the town. Shut up the park and sell the lops and tops ! What laws were these ? No one in Elizabeth's days had done such things, and no one should begin to do them now. The graziers smashed the fences, while the butchers overturned the carts. 'Down with gates, down THE LITTLE PARK. 17 with fences ! ' cried the mob. An ominous name was heard — that name of ' leveller,' — which events were afterwards to make so terrible to the king and to his son. But troops were moved into the park, who swept these rioters from the ground : the graziers to their cattle-runs, the butchers to their market -stalls. The county jails were filled, and Brigstoke as a market-town was ruined. Up to that time Brigstoke had been a busy place, with a good cattle-fair.

After the tussle in the park, graziers ceased to bring their beasts into the town, and the butchers moved into other shires. The king was pleased with his success. After these trials, he might close the park under his Castle wall ; close it, as he wished, ' to all men under rank of peer, except some gentlemen of the highest quality ; who would receive his license to that end.' His course was quickened by a slight domestic scene. When Anne, his consort, came to Windsor, he insisted on her going out at once to see him hunt ; and the good-humoured lady, though fatigued with riding in the sun, walked with him into the Little Park. He placed her at the stand, where she could overlook his sport. VOL. iv. C Anne was a woman of the North, a daughter of the Dane. That coursing after rabbits with a pack of beagles struck her as a game for boys, not men ; and after looking on the scene some time in scorn, she snatched a cross-bow, singled out a buck, and brought his antlers to the ground.

All faces turned on her. She had but just arrived, and every, one was measuring her with his eye. Her aim was true, her bearing proud ; men smiled, and said she was a queen. But James felt sorely hurt. His wife, he thought, was shaming him, not before his courtiers only, but before the com mon herd — rascals who might mock him in their cups, and toast his consort as the better man. Turning aside, he stood apart and sulked. His day was dashed. Anne, used to his ill-temper, turned on her heel, and going to her rooms in the Castle, left him to follow when his passion cooled. On his return, he called his secretary and signed his edict, closing the gates of his Little Park.

Chapter III. The Queen's Court

1603. Like all the Danish princes and princesses, Anne was a Lutheran, and her court at Windsor was expected to present the features and preserve the manners of an Evangelical court. Fine eyes, fair face, and lissom figure — with a gleam of humour in her smile, a flick of lightning in her talk — made Anne a charming woman in the sight of every one at Windsor, except the king. James treated her with outward courtesy, but he feared her, even when professing to love her most. She had a tongue, and when he vexed her, she was free of speech. He vexed her very much — in great things and in small ; the custody of her son, the doings of her servants, and the chatter of her fool. Of late they had seldom met, except to sneer and chafe. Anne was of higher mettle than her spouse ; and when he boasted of his crown, she answered stiffly that she was the daughter of a king.

Though they were man and wife, father and mother of a royal race, they had begun to fall into separate ways of life. James kissed her cheek in public, but the ceremony done, they wandered back into their private rooms ; Anne to amuse her time with book and picture, dance and play ; James to tipple whisky, listen to coarse jokes, and rail against the weaker sex — the sex of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Anne. No ' secret room,' no ' private passage,' were required in the domestic intercourse of Anne and James. Only two ladies came with Anne to Windsor. James brought in as many of his people as he pleased ; but he had told his consort, when he quitted her at Holyrood, that English ladies were so jealous of their rights, that if she had strange women near her person, they would never come to court.

He had two objects in his mind; one personal, one political. Although a Scot, he undervalued Scottish beauty, and he wished his lairds to marry English wives. Those lairds were poor ; by marrying English girls they might grow rich. No southern lord, he thought, would dream of courting a Scottish bride ; therefore he wished his wife to leave her female fry at home. Of greater moment was his second purpose, which he carefully concealed. He wanted to surround his wife with women of his choice ; women who would lead her gently on the road he wanted her to take. With deep regret she left her friends behind. At Windsor she found the court which had been prepared for her by James; a court that struck her with amazement ; equally on the male and on the female side. England was rich in eminent men.

Raleigh was nigh ; Bacon was waiting for an audience ; Grey was standing in the crowd ; but these great men were left to saunter on the terrace, or linger in the ante-room, while sots like Lennox, or fools like Hay, were closeted with his majesty. Anne, though often frivolous, had a sense of nobler things. Among those who filled her ante room, few of the men were with their wives ; hardly any of the women were with their husbands. Cecil was here, but not his wife ; Lady Rich was here, but not her husband ; Cumberland was here, but not his wife ; Lady Kildare was here, but Cobham, her husband, was in Kent ; Southampton was here, but not Southampton's wife; Lady Hatton was here, but not her husband, Coke. Suffolk and his partner lived under one roof, but scandal said that roof was as common ' as the North Road.' Anne raised her voice against such people being placed about her, and was not much pacified by being told that these lords and ladies were the greatest in the land.

To her the women were more offensive than the men. First in the group stood Catharine, Lady Suffolk, partner of the fighting earl ; a widow of Lord Rich before she married Suffolk. Catharine was past the prime of middle age, but she had managed to preserve her beauty and improve her wit : her rivals said, by means of charms and spells. She certainly toyed with magic, and kept her sorcerers much as she kept her domestic priests. She fawned on Cecil, she intrigued with South ampton. Sordid and unscrupulous, she sold her services to any one who could pay her price. No money ever passed her hand. With equal creed she swept into her heaps the smallest and the largest bribes ; taking a ring from a page with as much glee as a casket from a prince; beo-oing a place worth ten pounds a-year in the kitchen as keenly as a pension of five thousand marks a-year.

The gains of this bad woman laid the foundations of Suffolk House and Audley End. Next to Lady Suffolk stood her daughter, Frances, the betrothed of Robert Devereux, nephew of Lady Rich. Though but a girl, Frances had been trained in all the villanies of her mother's school. What Lady Suffolk knew of evil, Frances, her daughter, also knew — the market-price of rank, of beauty, of compliance. Young in years, she was experienced in deceit. Not by any twist or wrench, but on the lines laid down in her mother's house, she grew into that monster of iniquity known to every one as the adulteress Lady Essex, and the poisoner Lady Somerset. Hardly behind these reprobates came Penelope, Lady Rich. Penelope was a sister of Essex, a connexion of Elizabeth ; yet her birth had not preserved her from the scandals of a reckless life.

In earlier days, she had been the heroine of Sydney's verse. Greed of money had led her to marry Rich, nicknamed ' Rich Lord Rich ;' and by that match she had become a close connexion of Lady Suffolk. Rich had proved a fool ; his wife a jade. Soon after Sydney's death, she had flung herself into the arms of Blount, now become Lord Montjoy. Three of her children were disowned by her husband. The profligate lady, laughing in his face, admitted that their father was the handsome Irish deputy. To one of them she had impudently given the name of Montjoy. No less singular were two other dames — Alice, dowager countess of Derby, and her daughter Anne, Lady Chandos. Alice, the dowager countess, was believed to have poisoned her husband. Though a matron past her prime, she had no objection to vend her smiles and sell such influence as she possessed at court.