villas, for the most part the abodes of untitled traders, that could right do it. Every man regarded her marhad then no existence, and the country was no doubt vellously; the king himself could not withhold his in a great measure wild and unenclosed. But, besides regarding of her, for he thought that he never saw Windsor and Staines, there were several townships in before so noble nor so fair lady he was stricken the vicinage, and no doubt a good many farms and therewith to the heart, with a sparkle of fine love that homesteads already stood on the rich alluvial soil. endured long after; he thought no lady in the world The heights of Windsor and Cooper's Hill broke the so worthy to be loved as she. Thus they entered into monotony of the champaign, and in the distance the the castle hand-in-hand; the lady led him first into eye could rest upon the chalk hills of Buckinghamshire; the hall, and after into the chamber, nobly apparelled, while, nearer at hand, were other stupendous forests The king regarded so the lady, that she was abashed. besides the royal one of Windsor. As London had At last he went to a window to rest, and so fell in a poured forth its troops of sympathizing citizens, and great study. The lady went about to make cheer to as the commonalty, almost to a man, not only sympa- the lords and knights that were there, and commanded thized in the great cause, but were also ready to fight to dress the hall for dinner. When she had all devised for it, there could have been no lack of spectators. and commanded, then she came to the king with a We may conceive that the river was well sprinkled merry cheer, who was then in a great study, and she with barges and boats, and that every overhanging hill, said, 'Dear sir, why do ye study so for? Your grace or jutting promontory, or coigne of vantage, was covered not displeased, it appertaineth not to you so to do; with beholders-with men, women, and children-with rather ye should make good cheer and be joyful, seeing mothers holding their infants in their arms, and antici- ye have chased away your enemies, who durst not pating a happier existence to their progeny, and to abide you let other men study for the remnant.' their children's children, from the effects of this day's Then the king said, 'Ah, dear lady, know for truth great work. The scene would not have been called that since I entered into the castle there is a study forth, if the great body of the nation had been inca- come into my mind, so that I cannot choose but to pable of these aspirations.' muse, nor I cannot tell what shall fall thereof: put it Another age succeeds. The Anglo-Norman kings out of my heart I cannot.' Ah, sir,' quoth the lady, gather all their chivalry for the madness of conquest.ye ought always to make good cheer to comfort The huge old Round Tower-the low Tower, which looked like a stunted giant before its massiveness was destroyed by its additional height-that was the symbol of the days of Edward III. William of Wykeham has done his work; the old western fortress has become a college for ecclesiastics; the king has planted his standard on the crown of the hill. Now we have dreams of the Round Table; of tournaments and feasts; throngs of knights; the battle-fields of Cressy and Poictiers; captive kings. We were very fond of the Round Tower: it was a trophy of national glory. The charm is gone. It tells of false ambition; of dishonest conquests; of national hatreds then fo. mented, which five centuries have not obliterated. Is there any association really interesting in this epoch of Windsor's glory? We think there is. There is something more than pageantry and fighting in Froissart's story of Edward III. and the Countess of Salisbury, viewed in connection with the Order of the Garter. How well the old chronicler tells of the unhallowed love of the king, and the constancy of the noble lady, when she welcomed him in the castle that she had been bravely defending against her enemies! "As soon as the lady knew of the king's coming, she set open the gates, and came out so richly beseen, that every man marvelled of her beauty, and could not cease to regard her nobleness with her great beauty, and the gracious words and countenance she made. When she came to the king, she kneeled down to the earth, thanking him of his succours, and so led him into the castle, to make him cheer and honour, as she * The British Valhalla, No. X. By C. M'Farlane ( Penny Magazine.') therewith your people. God hath aided you so in your business, and hath given you so great graces, that ye be the most doubted (feared) and honoured prince in all Christendom; and if the King of Scots have done you any despite or damage, ye may well amend it when it shall please you, as ye have done divers times er (ere) this. Sir, leave your musing, and come into the hall, if it please you; your dinner is all ready.' Ah, fair lady,' quoth the king, other things lieth at my heart that ye know not of: but surely the sweet behaving, the perfect wisdom, the good grace, nobleness, and excellent beauty that I see in you, hath so surprised my heart, that I cannot but love and you, without your love I am but dead.' Then the lady said, Ah! right noble prince, for God's sake mock nor tempt me not. I cannot believe that it is true that ye say, or that so noble a prince as ye be would think to dishonour me, and my lord my husband, who is so valiant a knight, and hath done your grace so good service, and as yet lieth in prison for your quarrel. Certainly, sir; ye should in this case have but a small praise, and nothing the better thereby. I had never, as yet, such a thought in my heart, nor, I trust in God, never shall have for no man living. If I had any such intention, your grace ought not only to blame me, but also to punish my body, yea, and by true justice to be dismembered.' Herewith the lady departed from the king, and went into the hall to haste the dinner. When she returned again to the king, and brought some of his knights with her, and said, ‘Sir, if it please you to come into the hall, your knights abideth for you to wash; ye have been too long fast. ing.' Then the king went into the hall, and washed, and sat down among his lords, and the lady also. The king ate little; he sat still musing, and, as he durst, he cast his eyes upon the lady. Of his sadness his knights had marvel, for he was not accustomed so to be; some thought it was because the Scots were escaped from him. All that day the king tarried there, and wist not what to do: sometime he imagined that truth and honour defended him to set his heart in such a case, to dishonour such a lady and such a knight as her husband was, who had always well and truly served him; on the other part, love so constrained him, that the power thereof surmounted honour and truth. Thus the king debated to himself all that day and all that night in the morning he arose, and dislodged all his host, and drew after the Scots to chase them out of his realm. Then he took leave of the lady, saying, 'My dear lady, to God I commend you till I return again, requiring you to advise you otherwise than ye have said to me.' 'Noble prince,' quoth the lady, God, the Father glorious, be your conduct, and put you out of all villain thoughts. Sir, I am, and ever shall be, ready to do you pure service, to your honour and to mine.' Therewith the king departed all abashed." If we carry on the legend to the belief that the king subdued his passions, and afterwards met the noble woman in all honour and courtesy, we may understand the motto of the garter-" Evil be to him that evil thinks." Yes! this was the legend of the old chronicler that was connected in our minds with the Institution of the Order of the Garter-a legend of virtue subduing passion, and therefore not unfit to be associated with the honour and self-denial of chivalry. Touching was it to read that the "fresh beauty and goodly demeanour" of the lady of Salisbury was ever in Edward's remembrance; but that at a great feast in London, “all ladies and damsels were freshly beseen, according to their degrees, except Alice, Countess of Salisbury, for she went as simply as she might, to the intent that the king should not set his regards on her." Brave Alice! thou wert worthy to have an order of knighthood, to do homage to thy faith!-and so we will believe in" the notion of the Lady's Garter," although denounced as "a vain and idle romance. Still we are bound to look at the reverse of the medal. There is a manuscript at Windsor, written in Latin during the reign of Henry VIII., called 'The Black Book of the Order of the Garter,' which contains many grandiloquent passages, from which we may cull another story :-"The cause of creating this Order at first seems to be this, that true nobility, after long and many labours, might not complain of its being deprived, through envy, of the honour it had deserved; and that the sprightlier and less governable youth might not be without a bright example in virtuous performances, which are renowned, glorious, and lasting. Nor is Windsor improperly set apart for the worthy possession and glory of this honour: a place upon every account extremely proper, whether you consider either the nature or art of the place. Nature has drawn a compass round it, no less convenient for its defence, than beautiful to the eye. The mount of a good height, and of hard chalk, so that a foundation may be securely laid there; the river Thames flowing beneath it, abundantly enriched and beautified with shady groves, fruitful fields, and meadows. Wherefore our sovereigns adding equal art thereto, built a tower thereon, so famous and truly royal, that (if our own countrymen or even foreigners themselves may be believed) neither this part of the globe, nor even all Christendom, can show the like." From the description of Windsor the historian of the Black Book passes to King Arthur's Round Table, and his twenty-eight knights; and then rests upon Richard of the Lionheart as the inventor of the Garter: "When he lay with his army against Cyprus and Acon, and was wearied with the length of the siege, which was carried on with a great deal of difficulty and danger, the Holy Spirit inspiring him (as 'tis thought) by means of an apparition of St. George, it came into his mind to put on the legs of some select knights a leather, with a buckle, being what they had then in readiness; by which, being mindful of their future glory, they might be stirred up to behave themselves bravely and valiantly, so as to obtain the victory, after the manner of the Romans, among whom that diversity of crowns, with which, for various causes, soldiers were presented and honoured, that, as it were, by these incitements, their sluggishness being drove away, the bravery of their mind and stoutness of heart might be raised, and show itself with great lustre. Our glorious Richard seems also to have made use of the like counsels when he tied this leathern garter on the legs of his knights, to excite their already forward minds to perfect the work they had taken in hand, and prevent their being despoiled of this so great glory: the leathern garter which was then bestowed being to be succeeded by a richer and more splendid ensign of honour. In remembrance of which thing, after he had obtained many victories, when he returned into his country after a long absence, he intended to found, establish, and perfect that illustrious Order of St. George, on whose guardian protection the English so much rely what he did not go through with, Edward accomplished, that third Edward, in all kind of piety, bravery, and conduct truly great and supreme." * * * When Edward III. held the great feast of St. George at Windsor, "there was a noble company of earls, barons, ladies and damsels, knights and squires, and great triumph, justing, and tournays." The court of his unhappy grandson, Richard II., is ominous of his fate: "Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; a joust to be cried and published throughout his realm, to Scotland, to be at Windsor, of forty knights and forty squires, against all comers, and they to be apparelled in green with a white falcon, and the queen to be there, well accompanied with ladies and damsels. This feast was thus holden, the queen being there in great nobleness; but there were but few lords or noblemen, for more than two parts of the lords and knights, and other of the realm of England, had the king in such hatred, what for the banishing of the Earl of Derby and the injuries that he had done to his children, and for the death of the Duke of Gloucester, who was slain in the castle of Calais, and for the death of the Earl of Arundel, who was beheaded at London the kindred of these lords came not to this feast, nor but few other." That was a bright hour when Washington Irving's delightful paper in the 'Sketch-Book,' ' A Royal Poet,' first fell in our way. Then was opened to us the exquisite romance of James I. of Scotland and Lady Jane Beaufort; and we would picture the young victim of state intrigues, mewed up in Windsor during a captivity of nineteen years, solacing his imprisonment, first, with all liberal studies, and, secondly, with the bright hopes of an earnest love. We would fix upon some window of the old Round Tower, and ask whether it was from that spot that he looked out upon the world as he describes in the King's Quhair.' "Bewailing in my chamber thus alone, Despaired of all joy and remedy, To see the world and folk that went forby t." We would look over the low wall into the pretty garden in the moat of the Tower, and ask was this the "garden fair," sanctified by love and genius? "Now was there made, fast by the Toure's wall Ane herber green, with wandes long and small Was all the place, and hawthorne hedges knet‡.", Was it here that he saw, walking under the tower Full secretly, new coming her to pleyne §, The fairest or the freshest younge flower Washington Irving then carried us away with his enthusiasm :—“ It was the recollection of this romantic tale of former times, and of the golden little poem which had its birthplace in this tower, that made me visit the old pile with more than common interest. The suit of armour hanging up in the hall, richly gilt and embellished, as if to figure in the tournay, brought the image of the gallant and romantic prince vividly before my imagination. I paced the deserted chambers where he had composed his poem; I leaned upon the + Past. Knit. § Play-recreate herself. * Haste. window, and endeavoured to persuade myself it was the very one where he had been visited by his vision; I looked out upon the spot where he had first seen the Lady Jane. It was the same genial and joyous month; the birds were again vying with each other in strains of liquid melody; everything was bursting into vege. tation, and budding forth the tender promise of the year. Time-which delights to obliterate the sterner memorials of human pride-seems to have passed lightly over this little scene of poetry and love, and have withheld his desolating hand. Several centuries are gone by, yet the garden still flourishes at the foot of the tower. It occupies what was once the moat of the keep; and though some parts have been separated by dividing walls, yet others have still their arbours and shaded walks, as in the days of James; and the whole is sheltered, blooming, and retired." Alas! our age of ultra-poetical faith is gone! In the days when "the purple testament of civil war" was unrolled in England, would the moat of the keep,— the stronghold of Windsor,-be converted into a garden? The story of the 'King's Quhair' will not, however, be impaired by a mere error of locality. There were other towers within the old walls of Windsor, and other nooks where there might be a "fair garden." Jane Beaufort deserved the immortality which her lover has bestowed upon her. He carried her to a throne; and when treason cut short his career of honour and usefulness, she threw herself between her lord and the assassin, a worthy grand-daughter of "time-honoured Lancaster." We may quit this first period of the old chivalric history of Windsor, without any strong desire to linger amongst the memories of its early kings. The luxurious Edward IV. and the crafty Henry VII. held here their occasional courts; and here they built, and left some mark behind them. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, has bequeathed us something of Windsor that will endure as well as material monuments. He tells us what the life of Windsor was some years before the axe of the tyrant cut short his career of knighthood and of poetry. His poem, to which we have already alluded, is a genuine picture of a remarkable time long past. But we cannot longer indulge our antiquarian dreams. We must pursue our way to the Windsor of 1847. Returning to the entrance of the Park at Bishopgate, and proceeding on the ridge of the hill towards the termination of the Long Walk, we have a succes sion of varied and extensive views. As the road winds, the Castle and the surrounding country are presented to us with slight but interesting changes of distance and foreground. We leave the site of the Royal Cottage to the left of the high road—a beautiful secluded spot, which, offering no prospect, and shut out by trees, suited the jealous privacy of the successor of George III. What a contrast! The good old king, as it will long be the habit to call him, lived ever in the eye of his subjects. There was as little parade as can well be imagined in all the movements of George |