Windsor: a history and description of the Castle and the Town

Preface

. IGHTEEN years ago the Author published " Windsor in the Olden Time," which was very favourably received, and especially by those best acquainted with the Castle and neighbourhood. That little volume has now for a long time been out of print, and though repeatedly requested to republish it, sensible of its imperfection, he has always refused to do so. At length, however, having collected materials to render the book more complete, and more generally acceptable as a guide to the Castle, he has recast the whole, and now presents to the public a sub stantially new work. He sincerely thanks all his friends connected with Windsor Castle and the Royal Service there — particularly Mr. Woodward, the Queen's Librarian — for the valuable assistance which he has received from them in preparing this publication. CONTENTS.

Part I. Historical

CASTLE PAOB CHAP. I. — THE FOUNDATION 1 CHAP. II. — FROM HENRY III. TO EDWARD III 9 CHAP. III. — ORDER OF THE GARTER 27 CHAP. IV. — FROM RICHARD II. TO EDWARD IV. ... 37 CHAP. V. — THE TUDORS 60 CHAP. VI. — THE STUARTS 87 CHAP. VII. — WILLIAM AND ANNE 138 CHAP. VIII. — HOUSE OF HANOVER 144 TOWN. CHAP. I. — MEDIÆVAL WINDSOR 149 CHAP. II. — MARTYRS IN THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. . . 158 CHAP. III. — AGE OF ELIZABETH 165 CHAP. IV. — TOWN IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY AND SINCE 178

Chap. I. — The Royal Precincts 193 Chap. II. — The Neighbourhood

PART I. HISTORICAL.

CASTLE.

Chapter I. The Foundation

Æjjftty is?ii& HE antiquities of Windsor cany us back I^SaI *a^1 **° **me w^en **he Romans were in t^S 1 Possessi°n of our island. Traces of their fcMfl. triumphant career are to be found in *^*£*'v>s^"^ the neighbourhood. Roman bricks have been found at Old Windsor, and coins and urns at St. Leonard's. At Egham, also, Roman remains have been discovered. One of the great Roman roads passed the first-named place at no great distance. Some antiquaries have supposed that the station called " Pontes," mentioned in the ancient Roman Itinerary (called the Antonine Itinerary), was at Old Windsor ; but others, with greater probability, have fixed it at Staines. About eight years ago, the neighbourhood of Virginia Water was examined with a view to trace the remains of the Roman road. — " An investigation," says Mr. Edgell, the gentleman chiefly engaged in the research, " was commenced in Mr. Forbes' field, west of Broomhall, near the road leading to Sunninghill, in which situation may be seen a remarkable specimen of Roman road in its most perfect state : whilst in the fields, still more B CASTLE. to the westward, are scattered fragments of Roman bricks, tiles, and lead, affording sufficient indication that a Roman town, which must have been of considerable extent, once existed there.

Its course was kept in view for some distance ; crossing the western road, it passed north of the clock-case, and terminated on the brow at the extremity of the heath. The remarkable and undeviating line taken by the Roman engineer was observed, bearing to the north side of Ashford church, where, in my recollection, a portion of the Roman road existed perfect ; but now it is nearly, if not entirely, destroyed by the plantations, <fcc. From a bridge crossing the Thames below Staines, from those of the large encamp ments adjoining the river, together with the bridge at the ford at Ashford, must the station of Pontes have been denominated."* These antiquarian researches, however, relate rather to the neighbourhood of Windsor than to the place itself. Poetry and tradition have associated with the latter the romance of King Arthur ; and, in the preface to the " Black Book," or register of the Garter, we are gravely informed that this deservedly noted and famous prince, " in whose reign the riches and power of the Britons largely increased, began that noble tower at Windsor, and there instituted his Round Table."

It need scarcely be remarked, that there is no evidence whatever to support such a statement, and that most, if not all, of what is related respecting that celebrated personage is fictitious. There can be no doubt, however, that, at a very remote period, the Saxon kings had a palace at Old Windsor. It then bore the name of Wyndleshora, a Saxon appellation, * " Observations upon certain Roman Roads and Towns in the South of Britain." — Appendix, p. 45. THE FOUNDATION. 3 probably referring to the winding banks of the Thames in that vicinity.* A town of some extent existed there prior to the Conquest, and in the reign of William the Conqueror contained a hundred houses. Though Saxon urns, at different times, have been dug up in the neighbourhood, no one yet has been able to identify the site of the royal palace.

Wherever it stood, it seems to have been the resort of the Saxon princes ; and here, it is said, Edward the Confessor held his court. A story is related of him by William of Malmesbury, to the effect that one Wulwin, who was cutting down wood at Brill, in Bucks, fell asleep, and lost his sight for seventeen years, but through a dream he came to the king's court at Windsor, and was cured by the royal touch. In accordance with his saintly character, Edward was a munificent benefactor to the church ; and in an ancient deed of gift to the monks of Westminster, we find the king, " for the hope of eternal reward, the re mission of his sins, the sins of his father and mother, and all his ancestors, to the praise of Almighty God, granted, as an endowment and perpetual inheritance, to the use of the monks there that served God, Windsor, and all its appurtenances."

But the brotherhood at Westminster were not permitted long to retain the gift, for William the Conqueror, being attracted by the beauty of the neighbourhood, selected it as a residence. He required the monks to resign it into his possession, and compensated them for the loss by the grant of certain estates in the county of Essex. William ascended the English throne in the year 10G6, and pro- * In the " Annals of Windsor," p. 11, a new derivation is pro posed from Windles, a river in Windsor Forest, several miles distant. That Windsor should take its name, not from a large river on which it stands, but from a small one a long way off, is a very strange hypothesis. b2 CASTLE. bably at an early period of his reign erected a castle on the site of the present one, since in " Domesday Book," which was completed in the year 1086, the edifice is referred to as already in existence, and as containing within its precincts half a hide of land, parcel of the manor of Clewer.

Being extremely fond of the chase, the king appropriated for that purpose the forest for many miles round, and established laws for the preservation of the game. No description of William's castle remains, but it was probably of the same character with other Norman strongholds, of which many remains may be seen in different parts of the kingdom. A high solid rampart, flanked by salient towers, and defended by a parapet, enclosed an open space, in which, near the extremity, and on the highest elevation which could be obtained, stood the keep, the citadel of the fortification, and, in some cases, the residence of the lord. The entrance was accessible only by a precipitous flight of steps exposed to the missiles of the besieged, or by stairs of studied intricacy. The approach was guarded by a stockade, or a second rampart and ditch, dividing the enclosure into two wards or " baileys," called upper and lower.

Sometimes within the ramparts other buildings were erected, as the residence of the owner of the fortress, rather more adapted to domestic habitation than the cheerless keep.* The castle at Windsor, though intended as a hunting seat for the Conqueror, would, as a matter of course, in a warlike age, and under circumstances such as those which attended his accession to the sovereignty of England, partake of the nature of a fortress. The accommodation it afforded must have been of limited extent, and therefore the festivities of his court at Windsor, in the * See Introduction to the Illustrations of Windsor Castle, by Sir Jefirey Wyatville. THE FOUNDATION. ■3 Whitsuntide of 1070 and 1072, to which authors refer, were most probably held at the old Saxon palace. William Rufus, wearing his crown, no doubt, in accor dance with royal custom at such festivals, was there at the same season in 1095 with all his retinue, except the Earl of Northumberland, whose absence being construed into disaffection, he was besieged at Bamborough, and being afterwards taken prisoner, was conveyed to Windsor, and there confined.

The Bishop of Durham, when attending the Christmas court festivities, died here on New Year's day, 1095. Henry I. enlarged the castle and erected a chapel, and in the year 1110 kept the feast of Whitsuntide at New Windsor, . and invited the nobles of the realm to attend the solemnity. This is the first undoubted instance of a court being held in the new palace ; and it was on this occasion that ambassadors came to solicit the hand of the Princess Matilda for the Emperor Henry V., to whom the royal maiden, then but five years of age, was solemnly betrothed by proxy, — there being no small disparity in age between the noble pair, for her illustrious suitor had seen more than forty summers. In the reign of the first Henry, scenes of regal festivity and splendour within the walls of the castle were not unfrequent.

Here, on the 29th of January, 1121, he was united to his second queen, Adelaide, daughter of Godfrey of Louvain. " The coronation of this lady," says Speed, " was appointed to be celebrated by Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, the infirmity of palsy so troubling Ralph, Archbishop of Canterbury, that himself could not perform it ; yet, because Roger was not appointed by him, he forbad his employment ; and the king wearing his crown, saith the monk of Chester, this testy old man could hardly be intreated by the lords to witlihold his hands from striking the same from the king's CASTLE. head. Of such spirits then were those spiritual prelates, and jealousy to lose their pompous pre-eminence of honour." * A similar contention about placing the crown on the king's head arose between the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, at the Christmas festival, in the year 1127, when David of Scotland and the English barons swore fealty to the Empress Maude.

The castle of Henry I. differed but little in point of extent from that part which now forms the middle and lower wards. The king's house occupied " the upper ward, and the hall formed a portion of a line of buildings separating the two courts, and defended on the lower side by a ditch." A few architectural fragments, in the Norman style, brought to light from the excavations made in the castle-yard during the late improvements under Sir Jeffrey Wyatville, are, perhaps, the only existing relics of the palatial buildings of the twelfth century at Windsor, and might probably belong to a chapel which then formed part of the castle, and which is supposed to have covered a portion of the site of the military knights' houses. This chapel was dedicated to Edward the Confessor, and had an establish ment of eight secular priests.

In the reign of Stephen, Windsor was considered the most important fortress in the kingdom next to the Tower of London ; and in the treaty of peace between him and Duke Henry, afterwards Henry II., it is mentioned as the place of meeting between them. In the year 1170, the latter held his court in the castle, when William of Scotland and his brother David visited the monarch to present their congratulations on his return from Brittany. Five years afterwards, a treaty of peace was concluded on the same * Speed's " History of Great Britain," p. 459. THE FOUNDATION. spot between Henry and Roderic O'Connor, King of Connaught, by which the coast of Ireland, from Dublin to Waterford, was ceded to the English monarch. In the same reign, expenses were incurred in repairing or improv ing the royal buildings, of which there are several curious entries in the records of that period.

In the nineteenth year of Henry II. 's reign, the expenditure on the castle was estimated at .£73 7s. Gd. ; and in following years different sums are mentioned as paid by Master Geoffry, who, from the frequent occurrence of his name, seems to have been master of the works. Among the appendages to the royal palace at that time was a vineyard, and the expense of the vintage is specified in the annual charges relating to Windsor. Every one knows that Henry II. was an unhappy father, and the Chronicler Fabyan relates that the king ordered to be painted on the walls of his apartment at Windsor, an old eagle with four young ones pecking at it. " What means such a picture 1 " it was asked. " I am the old eagle," said the poor monarch, "and the eaglets are my sons. John, whom I love best, imagines my death."

John was represented picking out the old man's eyes. In the reign of Richard I., Windsor was involved in the troubles of the period. Hugh de Pudsey, the martial Bishop of Durham, occupied it, as regent, during the absence of the chivalrous monarch ; but he was compelled to surrender it to Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, a brother prelate, of similar warlike propensities. He retained it for awhile, and then delivered it to the Earl of Arundel ; it was after wards yielded into the hands of Prince John. Subsequently it was besieged and taken by the barons who remained faithful to the interest of their absent sovereign. It is recorded that John, after his accession, imprisoned in the castle of Windsor the Lord of Bramber and his wife CASTLE. and children, and starved them to death, because, when the imperious monarch sent for the baron's eldest son to be his page, the mother heroically exclaimed, that she would not surrender her children to a king who had murdered his nephew.

Within the walls of Windsor Castle the same monarch afterwards sought security during his perilous struggle with the barons ; and thither he repaired, after the charter of England's freedom had been extorted from him on the neighbouring plain of Runnymede, to brood over plans of revenge, and to lament, with the fury of a maniac, over the concessions he had been forced to make.* Attempting again to invade the rights of his subjects, he was once more assailed by his powerful barons, who invested the castle, but were obliged by the garrison to raise the siege. * " It is probable that John aud his attendants went to the con ference (at Magna Charta Island, Ankerwyke) from Windsor in the morning of each day, and returned to the castle at night." — " Annals of Windsor," vol. i. p. 53. t

Chapter II. Feom Henry III

TO EDWARD III. l**5wA*^w*3_r ENRY III., a munificent patron of archi- \?L PhlKU I/hE" soon after his accession to the *{? fSvl TieF throne, made very considerable additions to jH Jfe'41 \f-\ the castle. In the eighth year of Ma reign, ■*o*0,>r&«\?> it appears, from existing records, that the sheriffs of London were commanded to deliver one hundred of fir to Master Thomas, for the purpose of making doors and windows, an order which probably relates to some new and stately edifice. In the twenty-third year of the same reign an order was given to the bailiffs of Windsor to paint the queen's chamber, to line or plaster the chamber of the prince, to make a private room contiguous, to put iron bars in the windows, and to form a floor in the turret of the gate, so as to divide it into two stories, and to cover it with lead ; entries which, though trivial in themselves, become interest ing as indications of the state of domestic architecture at that early age.

In the twenty-fourth year, Walter de Burgh was commanded to make a certain apartment for the king's use in the castle of Windsor, near the wall of the said castle, sixty feet in length and twenty-eight feet wide ; and another apartment for the queen's use, which should be contiguous to the king's, and under the same roof; and a chapel, seventy feet long and twenty-eight feet wide, along the same wall, so that a sufficient space should CASTLE. be left between the apartments and the chapel to make a grass-plot. Respecting the royal habitation, nothing further can be ascertained than the dimensions. Of the chapel there are other notices, which prove it to have had the appendages of a galilee or porch, a cloister, and a bell tower. In three years the walls of the chapel were ready for the roof, and a pressing order was addressed to the Archbishop of York to see the works completed.

The roof is described as a lofty wooden one, after the manner of that which was then being built at Lichfield ; and directions are given that it should be lined and painted, so as to appear like stone ; and, also, that it should be covered with lead. The same order directs a bell-tower to be erected in front of the chapel, to be built of stone, and of a size to hold three or four bells. Four gilt images were also to be provided, and placed where the king had previously determined. The cloisters seem to have been partially completed about this time, but some portion was not carried up to the roof until five years later, when six carrates of lead for covering it are mentioned, to be provided by the sheriffs of London. An order was also given to enclose the space from the door of the great hall to the galilee with a wall, ten feet high, with a small door near the wardrobe ; and, also, to make a wooden barrier round the galilee, to prevent horses from approaching it.

While these altera tions were going on, the king must have been hard pressed for money, since Madox, in his " History of the Exchequer," relates that in the twenty-ninth of Henry's reign, not having enough to pay the officers of the chapel, he was driven actually to pawn a valuable image of the Virgin, which stood within its precincts. "Many entries and particulars," observes Mr. Britton, " respecting towers, a new kitchen, an oriel, a private chapel, an oratory, accommodation for the queen, colours, boards, laths, lead, crenellation of towers and walls ; a salting house, and* other offices ; a wardrobe for the queen's clothes, and a chamber for nurses, are specified in the items of accounts and works for this reign. A fountain, a conduit, a drawbridge, iron chains, a portcullis, a lavatory, a barbican, and many other domestic essentials, as well as military objects, were made and provided."* In those days, the natural soil rammed down and strewed with litter or rushes, was the only floor of which even the baron's home could boast; but as a special piece of regal luxury, Henry III. ordered a room on the ground floor at Windsor to be " boarded like a ship."

To entertain the poor at certain seasons was deemed in those times no mean virtue ; and in the twenty-fourth year of this reign an order was given to the bailiffs to fill the great hall of the castle, on the Nativity of our Lord, with poor people, and the lesser hall likewise on the days of St. Stephen and St. John, and the Epiphany. Similar directions are given to fill the hall with poor chaplains and clerks on the day of St. Thomas, and with poor boys on St. Innocents' Day. Carpenters were maintained in the royal establishment, and minute items of domestic expenditure are preserved, down to one of 15s. to Matilda, the wife of Master Thomas, carpenter, to buy a new gown.t The lesser hall was in the upper bailey, the large hall in the lower. A description is preserved of a throne, painted and gilt, which stood in the large hall, with the figure of a king in his regalia on either side.

Mention is further made of stained glass windows, which were not completed till some * " Architectural Illustrations of Windsor Castle." — By Britton. t Among the writs issued from Windsor during this reign, is a curious one relating to a white bear, which was kept in the Tower of London, for the purpose of catching fish in the river Thames for the royal table. CASTLE. years after the erection of the building, but which, together with the other decorations, evince a decided progress in the conveniences and luxuries of life. But little remains of the castle as it was in the reign of Henry III.* The old grey towers, which still flank the western wall — namely, the Salisbury Tower, at the bottom of the hill ; its neighbour, now undergoing "restoration," formerly known as the Garter Tower ; and the old bell tower, often called Julius Cæsar's Tower, are the chief remains of Windsor Castle as it stood in those distant days.

In removing some buildings connected with the canons' houses to the south of St. George's Chapel — on the spot where the Bomus Regis of Henry III. stood — a door in a wall belonging to that period has been brought to light — probably the relic of a chamber for the king or queen, of which a notice is extant in orders given to Walter de Burgh in the 24th of Henry III. It may be added that when extensive alterations were made in Thames-street in the year 1852, the workmen employed in pulling down the houses which stood in the castle ditch discovered a subterranean passage, which has since been kept open by a well-like shaft com municating with the green bank which slopes down from the castle wall, close to the Garter tower. The author was allowed very recently to explore .the passage, and found that in one direction it descended towards the lower part of the ditch, where it terminates, and in the opposite direction ascended towards the castle wall.

A good flight of stone steps still remains, and the masonry of the roof is perfectly sound. A screen wall is built across the upper part, and this intercepts further access ; but it was stated by one of the castle workmen that the passage takes a bend and turns up to the crypt of the bell tower. It no doubt * The Domus Megis, with the larger hall, must have occupied the site of what is now St. George's Chapel. belongs to Henry III.'s castle, and was possibly a sallyport in the fortification. It is supposed to have been con nected with a barbican noticed in the rolls of the 23rd year of Henry III., but there appears no direct evidence to show where that barbican stood. We may notice, that in the thirty-fifth year of his reign, Henry III. made a grant of land in the forest for a Leper Hospital, of which probably we have a memento and a mark of the site in the hamlet of Spital, on the road to St. Leonard's. Henry III.'s son, afterwards Edward I., was educated at Windsor, for we find in the Issues ofthe Exchequer the fol lowing order : — " Pay out of our treasury to Hugh Giffard and William Bran £200, for the support of Edward our son and his attendants residing with him at our castle of Windsor."

The quietude of Windsor was disturbed by the wars between the king and the barons. Prince Edward during this turbulent period held Windsor Castle, but Henry and his queen chiefly resided at the Tower of London. On one occasion, when her residence was assailed by a mob, she attempted to escape in her royal barge to Windsor ; but the populace endeavoured to sink the vessel, and she with difficulty escaped their violence and returned to the Tower. Not feeling herself safe there, she afterwards removed to the Bishop of London's palace, whence she was privately conveyed to Windsor Castle. The monarch subsequently made the city of London pay dear for the insult which had been offered to his queen. He deprived it of its charters, and summoned the Lord Mayor and some other citizens to appear before him at Windsor, there to affix the city seal to the instrument of their humiliation.

On their arrival at the castle, they were treated with the greatest indignity by the officers of the household, and committed to the charge of the constable of the Round Tower, where they were con fined till the following day. The mayor and four others CASTLE. were afterwards subjected to strict confinement till they should pay their ransom. Sixty thousand marks was the sum demanded, which, however, was reduced to twenty thousand marks, on the earnest plea of the citizens, who declared themselves unable to raise the larger amount. During the same reign in which Windsor Castle was dis turbed by the civil commotions of the kingdom, the ele ments also assailed it with violence. Holinshed mentions a remarkable storm in the year 1251, on St. David's Day, when the chamber wherein the queen and her children then were, was beaten down to dust, and the whole build ing sore shaken.

" In the parks oaks were rent asunder and turned up by the roots, and much hurt done, as mills with the millers in them, sheepfolds with their shepherds, and ploughmen, and such as were going by the way, were de stroyed and beaten down, the chimney of the nursery thrown down by the shock, several oaks being at the same time uprooted in the parks by a tremendous hurricane.'' These scanty fragments, associated with the information which the history of our country at large affords, respecting the circumstances of our monarchs, and the state and habits of society in those remote times, may enable us to form some imperfect idea of the place and its appearance during the reigns of the early Norman sovereigns. The castle was the only building of any importance whatever. A few scattered dwellings around the royal abode, inhabited by the vassals ofthe king, or the serfs ofthe soil, were all that consti tuted the Windsor of that period.

It was the age of feudalism, when everything deserving the name of civilization was confined to the prince and the baron, and the great mass of society was in a state of semi-barbarism. Nor could royalty itself, in those days, boast of any other magnificence than such as in our eyes seems most rude and comfortless. The apartments, the banquets, the festivities, the costumes, were all of this description, and the manners of society were of a corresponding character. One can picture the Norman stronghold on the brow of Windsor Hill, its towers and fortifications, its gloomy halls with their oaken rafters, and its large straggling chambers, with narrow loopholes fitted rather to exclude than to admit the light of heaven. We can also fancy that we see the mail-clad lords doing homage to their feudal sovereign, or unbending from the toils of the field amidst the boisterous merriment of the royal feast.

The forms of England's queens, and the ladies of their courts, pace along the battlements or wander in the gardens of the castle. Nor can we forget that violence and war often broke in upon scenes which just before were quiet and joyous. In the reign of the first Edward, brighter days dawned on Windsor. The country being relieved from intestine feuds, and the differences between the king and the nobles of the realm being adjusted, the seat of royalty, no longer exposed to the incursions of war, became the scene of courtly magnificence, and witnessed many of those rude displays of festivity which characterized the age. It had been the favourite residence of his wife Eleanor while he was prince, and here she gave birth to three chil dren, John, Eleanor, and Henry. In the sixth year of Edward's reign, according to a record preserved among the archives in the Tower, a splendid tournament was held in Windsor Park.

Accoutrements were provided for thirty-eight knights ; and, from the accounts of the money expended, it would appear that they were clothed in very costly array. " Armour was provided for all the knights. It appears to have been of gilt leather ; and various sums, from 7s. to 25s., were paid for making and gilding each suit to the three persons employed, Cosmo the tailor, Salvag' the tailor, and Reyniunde de CASTLE. Burdieus. At the end of this item of the account, there is a memorandum stating that each suit of armour consisted of a tunic, a surcoat, a pair of ailettes (appendages to the shoulders), a crest, a shield, a helmet of leather, and a sword of ' balon,' probably whalebone (baleen)."* Among the anecdotes relating to the castle at that period, there is a remarkable account of the preservation of the king from what might have proved a most serious accident.

One day, when he was playing at chess with a knight, he suddenly rose from his seat, without having any definite motive for doing so ; and the next instant the centre stone of the groined roof of the apartment fell to the ground on the spot which he had just left. Stow mentions that in this reign, in the year 1295, a destructive fire broke out in the castle of Windsor, con suming many of the offices, and defacing several " goodly images made to beautify the building." Edward II. frequently resided at Windsor, and here his renowned son Edward III. first saw the light. He was christened in the then existing chapel, four days after his birth. The uncle of Isabella, and the rest of the French nobles who were at the court of his royal parents, were urgent with the king to allow his name to be Louis ; but the English nobles, always averse to foreign appellations, insisted that the princely boy should be baptized by none other than the name of Edward.