A ROYAL RESIDENCE.
By James Henry Stevenson.
One morning the Professor, whom I had not seen since I left Tennessee, accidentally unearthed me in London and proposed that we should visit Windsor. Now, I may as well confess to defective initiative, in regard to sight-seeing, for I had been within reach of Windsor on several former occasions and had not yet seen the home of the most gracious queen the world has ever known. This, too, in face of the fact that a German professor had assured me that Windsor was “himmlisch.” When a German so far forgets himself as to say that anything English is “heavenly,” be assured he has great provocation.
WINDSOR CASTLE FROM THE THAMES.
Of course, I acceded without hesitation to the Professor’s proposal and we selected a train, appointed a rendezvous, and agreed to go the following morning.
The Professor’s traveling companion was a “blue grass” doctor of divinity, while I was courier, guide, and advance agent to the “delegate,” sent by his admiring countrymen and brethren to unload some ecclesiastical “thunder and lightning” on their conservative confrères in the old land. The “delegate’s” wife was traveling with him as a sort of balance wheel on his too impetuous energy and to see that he was not imposed on by the overbearing foreigner; she was not averse to a little vigorous sight-seeing when otherwise unemployed. They also joined the party, which was completed by “Wee McGregor,” as the eight-year-old was called, who looked to me for his traveling expenses.
Having visited London before, and being possessed of an unearned reputation as a dragoman, I felt it was incumbent on me to show the party the best and quickest way to reach Windsor. Accordingly I hailed one of those obsolete conveyances which the London City Fathers provide for the traveler, to whom the conservation of energy is of more moment than arriving at a destination.
In due time, somewhat shaken but still in good humor, for the day was yet young, we arrived at King’s Cross station on the Metropolitan Railway, better known by the more modest and suggestive title of the “Underground.” “Here,” I had said to the prospective sightseers, “we shall get a train that will connect direct and without change at Paddington station with the train for Windsor.” This was all true except the “without change” clause. For this slight deviation from strict veracity I have no apology to make. Indeed, I doubt whether I am entitled to play the role of guide while so generous with the truth.
I kept my tourists “rounded up” and prevented them from embarking in various directions. As there were trains passing every two or three minutes it seemed a waste of time not to take one and I had, as a consequence, a very busy quarter of an hour. At last our train came, and, after rushing madly up and down the platform the entire length of the train, we found places, though in different “stalls.”
When an American train arrives at a station you go in and find a seat. When an English train, especially of the old style which is now happily disappearing, arrives, you must first find a seat and then go in. You trail up and down the platform and poke your nose into every compartment answering to the class for which you have purchased tickets. Here is one with two or three places vacant, but you have a party of four, and as they are strangers in the country, you must keep them together to ensure their alighting at the right place. Besides you naturally want to be within speaking distance of one another. So you start back again to the other end of the train, terrified every moment lest the engineer grow weary of your bootless explorations, and decide to start. Ah! Here is a vacant apartment at last, but just as you are about to step in with a light heart you notice that it is marked “first class” and unfortunately you are not a millionaire. You continue your search and find eventually a vacant apartment of the class in which you are entitled to ride. Your troubles are now ended; your party is seated; your impedimenta are laboriously stowed away in the racks, when, with envious nonchalance, enters a smoker armed with a little cigarette that vomits smoke like a factory chimney. The ladies are indignant; you rack your brain for something sufficiently withering to say, and just as you are ready to deliver, you notice, faintly etched on the window, the word “smoking.” Now, if you were traveling in Austria, you would give the “guard” a quarter to remove the label with the offensive word, and would settle back virtuously into the leather cushions, but here, while the English guard would be equally obliging—for a like “bakshish”—it is a more serious matter to remove the door or window. In the meantime you have left the smoker in quiet possession to fill the vacant space with clouds of the fragrant weed. In despair you apply to the guard and when you appropriately recognize his importance, he finds you a place in a moment.
The stations on the “Underground” are open to the surface and are light and airy, but when the train plunges under London, and the compartment fills up with the gases, that have been accumulating down here for the past thirty years, you realize that traveling on the “Underground” does not differ widely from suicide by slow asphyxiation.
The “delegate” put his silk handkerchief to his nostrils and looked suspiciously at me. It requires some ten minutes to make the distance between King’s Cross and Paddington, so he was unable to hold his breath all the way. Every time he breathed I felt as if I had murdered a man. My Tennessee friend and the Kentucky parson were not yet disposed to be critical, so they chatted merrily, breathed regularly, and acted as though these sulphur laden fumes were their “native air.”
But after we had quitted Paddington station, and the train had taken its last few plunges under ground; when we had actually shaken off the dust and grime and roar of London, the beauty of the incomparable English landscape began to make us glad. Patchwork hillsides, where tiny fields are partitioned off by greenest hedges, lovely valleys, where brimming streams shimmer their length along, came, one by one, into view. The English streams have no visible banks. The turf, green as an emerald, grows clear to the water’s brink and dangles its luxuriant growth into the quiet brook, as a barefoot boy, playing truant, cools his feet in some wayside stream, while the master’s wrath grows warm. These rivers—for rivers I must call them, though a good athlete might almost leap from side to side—are always full and seem as though the accidental dropping in of a pebble would make them overflow.
As hill and valley, hedge and garden, country home and quiet hamlet, all of surpassing loveliness, swept past us, my entire party began to fall under the spell of this exquisite beauty, and I felt that there had arisen the unanimous, though unexpressed, conviction that now, at last, the self-appointed guide was earning his salary.
WINDSOR CASTLE FROM THE THAMES.
As Windsor is distant from London by about forty minutes ride, the tourist arrives at his destination fresh and “fit,” to use an expressive English phrase. When we issued forth from the station we encountered, as a matter of course, the ubiquitous hackman who, in all lands, stands ever ready to drive you to all the places you especially do not want to visit. The object of our pilgrimage was the Castle, distant a stone’s throw from the station, so there was no occasion to provoke an unnecessary and futile dispute with the “cabbie.” We next encountered an army of small boys distributing handbills, on which were set forth, in eloquent terms, the merits of the various “tea rooms” of the city, which unselfishly cater to the comfort of the stranger. We accepted this service as a matter of course, first, because it was gratuitous; second, because it was the easiest way to get rid of the boy, and third, because, though a sight-seer may pull through the day without the assistance of a hansom or a “growler,” I have never known one who was not ready to take a little refreshment, especially when he was traveling abroad. After we had become thoroughly tired out, with climbing the steps of the Round Tower and general sight-seeing, we found a cosy, clean and restful upper room, where the actual bill of fare was not badly out of harmony with the promises of the card.
The town of Windsor, itself, possesses nothing of special interest to the traveler. The Castle, situated in a commanding position on the Thames, dominates the town from every point of view, and is, with its environs, the sole reason for a visit.
The group of buildings enclosed by the walls is nearly a mile in circumference and has been the favorite home of most of the sovereigns of England since the days of William the Conqueror. Each one has continued the lavish expenditures of his predecessor to enrich and beautify it. It fascinates, therefore, not only by its great beauty, the romance suggested by wall and tower, but also, and especially, by the variety of its architecture. Here we can study the master-builder’s art, as gate, chapel, and tower step forth, in quick succession, to instruct us. The space, enclosed by the walls of the castle, is divided into two wards—the lower and the upper—by the great Round Tower, which occupies the brow of a hill, or mound, commanding the upper ward, which is level, and looking down upon the lower ward, which is situated on a gradual incline. The walls are pinched together at the Tower, but swell out around either ward, suggesting somewhat the figure eight.
We arrived at Windsor by the Great Western Railway, and after walking up a little hill, High Street, passing on the left the beautiful Jubilee statue of Queen Victoria, we found ourselves at the main entrance of the lower ward, Henry VIII’s gateway. Notice this splendid example of Tudor architecture, built about 1510. Either side of the gateway is flanked by a mighty tower, which you will notice has three sides to make more effective the defence. Over the gateway, in a row, may be seen the badges of Henry: the fleur-de-lis, suggesting the English claim to the French crown; the Tudor Rose; and the portcullis, used so frequently after the twelfth century to protect the gateway from sudden assault.
My readers will remember that Henry was rather indulgent to himself in the matter of marriages. He experienced, all told, six wives, of whom Providence removed two, divorce set aside two more, and the executioner’s axe cut short the career of the remaining pair.
His second wife, Anne Boleyn, the most charming of the lot, whom Henry first married, afterward divorcing her rival, paid the penalty of her attractiveness, or coquetry, at the executioner’s block in the Tower of London. She, with a gorgeous retinue attending her, was met at this gate by Henry and welcomed to the place with the assurance that she would shortly be its real mistress. All this, however, to the great regret of the “delegate’s” wife, took place before our arrival.
How different is the architecture of the Norman gate with its graceful round towers! Here, in these chambers which you may see above the entrance, and in the rooms of the towers themselves, were kept, during the struggle between Crown and Parliament, many famous prisoners.
As we entered the lower ward, by Henry VIII’s gateway, the beautiful proportions of St. George’s Chapel rose before us on the left. Adjoining, on the east, is Albert Memorial Chapel, the gem of the entire group. Still traveling east and ascending the hill, we come first to the residence of the Dean and Chapter, and then to the famous Round Tower. Directly across from St. George’s the group of buildings is the residence of the Military Knights, who date from the founding of the order of the Garter, when Edward III established this to provide for the relief of poor knights. It was called by Elizabeth, “Poor Knights of Windsor,” but William IV took away its reproach by giving it the present name.
These are the main features of the lower ward, the buildings being grouped around a large balloon-shaped court.
WINDSOR CASTLE, NORMAN GATEWAY.
Beyond the Round Tower lies the upper ward, perfectly level, with stately buildings on three sides of a square which contains a splendid example of artistic gardening. The buildings on the north are the State apartments, and those on the south and east the royal suites. This group has twenty-four towers, seventeen state apartments, forty-eight rooms, seventy-nine bedrooms, sixty-five sitting rooms, and rooms containing two hundred and thirty-one beds for servants.
Our first objective point was St. George’s Chapel. The exterior of this building is very beautiful and singularly in harmony with the surrounding structures. This effect the architect accomplished by avoiding the use of the conventional church tower, while at the same time preserving the ecclesiastical appearance.
We found, within, a group of people in charge of a verger, who was explaining to them the various objects of interest. We went our own way and when we had finished, found that the verger and his flock had departed and the door was locked. It felt, at first, a trifle like being in jail, but conscious of our rectitude, we waited till the door opened again and then passed out. As we had found the door open when we arrived and had entered in unchallenged, it did not occur to us that the verger considered it necessary to personally conduct us through the building and bid us farewell when we left; nor did we think that we had in any way slighted him till the Kentucky parson, who had remained behind to ask a few questions, later reported that the ecclesiastical pathfinder had enquired of him, with fine scorn, if “that aristocratic party belonged to him.” The “aristocratic party,” was the professor, the “delegate” and myself, who were now safely out of reach, while the verger’s fee jingled merrily at the bottom of our pockets.
On every hand, at Windsor, are posted notices forbidding the servants to receive any gratuities, but we learned, that notwithstanding the seemliness of such a regulation in such a place, none but a novice took it seriously. Consequently, when we later visited the Royal Stables, we emerged proudly from the ordeal after having deposited a shilling in the ever ready hand of the guide.
But to return to the chapel. It was begun by Henry I and mutilated as usual by the soldiers of the Puritans, and restored again by Charles II and his successors, but Victoria has perhaps done most for it.
HENRY VIII GATEWAY.
There are many tiny chapels around the various walls, in the fashion of the churches of Europe. We noticed, especially, the Braye chapel to the right of the entrance. On the walls hung a sword and swordbelt, showing evident marks of service in the field. An inscription explained that they belonged to Captain Wyatt-Edgall, who recovered the body of the Prince Imperial, in Zululand. He, himself, was also killed in South Africa. The same chapel contains the monument to Prince Imperial—son of Napoleon III and Eugènie,—who fought with the English in South Africa, and there died.
A translation of the inscription at the foot of the marble figure—a figure of the recumbent prince, grasping his sword which lies along his body—reads: “The well-beloved youth, the comrade of our soldiers, slain in the African war, and thence carried to the tomb of his fathers, and represented in funereal marble in this holy domicile of kings, Queen Victoria receiveth as her guest.”
There is also an interesting extract from the will of the prince, which reads: “I shall die with a feeling of profound gratitude for her Majesty, the Queen of England, and for the royal family, and for the country in which, during eight years, I have received so cordial a hospitality.”
The choir, a church within the church, is situated in the center of the chapel and at the east end. A passage runs the entire way round the sides and rear. It is raised some four feet above the level of the floor and is a long gallery with two rows of lateral seats, and an organ, said to be the finest choir organ in Europe, at the farthest end. The seats, on either side, are the stalls of the Knights of the Garter. They are most elaborately carved from floor to ceiling, decorated with crests and emblems.
The remains of Henry VIII and Lady Jane Seymour, who was neither divorced nor beheaded, since she lived only a year after her marriage, are buried beneath the center of the choir. Under the entire chapel a royal vault was constructed by George III, cut out of the chalk rocks below. It is seventy by twenty by fifteen feet and designed for eighty-one bodies.
THE ROUND TOWER, WINDSOR CASTLE.
Directly in the rear of St. George’s is Albert Memorial Chapel, the most interesting feature, as well as the most artistic and costly creation at Windsor. The chapel was begun by the pious, though much married, Henry VIII, who soon abandoned it for Westminster. Constancy was, perhaps, not one of Henry’s strong points. Wolsey, who was Henry’s pope and aspired to be the real one, begged and obtained the chapel for himself, but fell from Henry’s favor, as the ladies had done, before he could finish it. When the Parliamentary forces obtained possession of Windsor, they desecrated it as usual, and sold its plunder for $3,000. Wolsey’s sarcophagus, which escaped, was removed by George III, three hundred years later, to St. Paul’s, where it now holds the dust of Nelson.
It is well known that Victoria decided to convert this chapel into a memorial for the Prince Consort after his death. No expense was spared, and when it was completed in 1874, its interior rivaled the most splendid ecclesiastical structures in the world.
The fourteen windows, with panels beneath thirteen of them, are dreams of art. The windows contain portraits and arms of various kings, queens and princes, and some symbolical figures. The panels beneath picture scenes from the Old and New Testaments, suggestive of various virtues and religious truths. The chapel contains in the center, besides the Prince’s cenotaph, the tombs of the Dukes of Albany and Clarence.
The Round Tower is the most picturesque feature of the castle. Nothing is so interesting as a tower. Not a modern tower—a mere imitation—but a real tower, with dungeons, where prisoners have clanked their chains in despair, with great halls where knights in armor foregathered, with secret passages and musty mysteries in every corner—a tower that has lived on to see this age of civilization superimposed upon its own rough, ready and bloody past.
VICTORIA TOWER AND SOUTH SIDE.
The tower is over three hundred feet in circumference and is built on the top of a high mound in a most commanding situation. It is reached, after one passes through the Norman Gate, by a long flight of steps, which is continued up through the structure till the base of the turret is reached. This flight is commanded by a cannon placed at the head of the stairs. The turret, a good-sized tower itself, is built upon the top of the old tower of George III. Within the turret, the stairs wind around a massive bell, brought from Sevastopol.
Finally the top is reached, three hundred and twenty-five feet from the ground, and we walk round the ample promenade—the turret is twenty-five feet wide—dumb in the presence of the loveliness before us. How beautiful is an English landscape, with its living green, threaded here and there by the silver sparkle of a stream. West and south we looked out over Windsor forest and parks, while in the north Eton College was plainly visible with the inevitable cricketers, dressed in white flannel, moving to and fro over the matchless sward, or facing the “crease,” which is, I believe, the “correct” name for the “pitcher’s box.”
How much history and mystery might not the walls of this old tower, built by Edward III, teach us, could they but speak! This tower once contained the great round table of the Knights of the Garter and was the home of the constable-governors, who were responsible for the safe keeping of the state prisoners, among the most famous of whom have been John, of France, and David, of Scotland.
As illustration of the possible mysteries that may still lurk about the tower, I will mention a recent discovery. While investigating a stone cover with an iron handle, the mouth of a well was uncovered. It was found to descend one hundred and sixty-four feet, to the level of the Thames, and was lined up with masonry most of the way.
From the turret a fine view is obtained of the state and private apartments of the castle. These contain magnificent collections of rare bric-a-brac and art objects of all kinds. Paintings, tapestries, and ceramics of priceless worth, are kept in the various rooms and galleries. The Van Dyck room recalls the fact that this Dutch artist was brought to England, knighted and pensioned by Charles I. There are also a Zuccarelli room and a Rubens room, with famous paintings from the artists whose names they bear.
Our next visit was paid to the Royal Stables. Here we were received at an office, and after registering our names and nativity were put in charge of guides. Words cannot do justice to the splendid appearance of the well-matched horses, a large proportion of which were greys, and the cleanliness and order of the stalls. Even the straw beneath the horses’ feet was unruffled. At the foot of the stall was laid a nicely plaited braid of straw, forming a pretty border, and on either side stood little sheaves of straw, daintily bound, and presenting the appearance of a row of sentinels down the long line.
We were conducted through stable after stable, and shown horses for all sorts of uses, and horses that were no longer of any use but were pensioners of His Majesty, for services already rendered the State. Then came the carriages. Carriages for royal purposes, and for State purposes and for “breaking in” purposes.
What impressed me most was an old chair on wheels—such as one sees invalids moved about in. It was as commonplace looking as one could well imagine. To it were attached a pair of shafts, and I recognized it at once as there rose before me the vision of the Queen, with broad brimmed straw hat, and accompanied only by a little child, usually one of her grandchildren, while a humble donkey ambled through the grounds of Windsor and pulled the improvised carriage. Such was the picture I had seen in the Sunday school papers, and now the sight of the actual carriage gave the much needed air of reality. This mode of taking exercise emphasized at once both the Queen’s independence and simplicity of manner.
The Great Park, adjoining Windsor Castle, contains 18,000 acres. Within it is located Frogmore House, another royal residence, near which is the Royal Mausoleum. Everyone must have been impressed, at some time or other, with the faithfulness of the late queen to the memory of the Prince Consort. Throughout her long widowhood, she seems to have lived in the presence of his death. The monuments, that perpetuate his name, unless one looks at their artistic value, seem an extravagant waste of money. Certainly he rendered no conspicuous service to the State, so that we are justified in regarding these costly memorials as tributes of the loyal and undying love which the Queen cherished for her husband.
Royal marriages, that are so frequently the result of political exigencies, are not always happy. Perhaps it would not be wide of the mark to say, are not often happy. All the greater reason, therefore, that this one, which was conspicuously congenial, should iterate its testimony.
On the fourteenth of December, the anniversary of the Prince’s death, the Dean of Windsor regularly held a memorial service at the mausoleum, during the lifetime of the Queen. Those who had obtained tickets were admitted to the mausoleum after the service, but this was the only date in the year when it might be seen.
The foundation stone of the structure was laid by the Queen, herself, and contains the following words:
“His mourning widow, the queen, directed all that is mortal of Prince Albert, to be placed in this sepulchre, A. D. 1862. Farewell, well-beloved: Here at last I will rest with thee; with thee, in Christ, I will rise again.”
Windsor Castle has had a long and varied history; it has been associated closely with many of the kings of England and with stirring scenes of English history, but for many, many years to come, its mention will call to memory the good and universally beloved woman—Victoria.