Has been a stronghold of importance since Saxon times. St. George's Chapel,
whose long roof-line can be seen in the picture, was built by Edward IV.
During the Civil War the castle was held by the Parliamentary forces, whose mere presence behind the strong walls was sufficient to repel Prince Rupert, Charles I.'s headstrong nephew, who had hoped with a small body of horse to surprise the castle. No further attempt was made by the Royalists to capture the royal fortress, to which King Charles was brought as a prisoner in December, 1648. For three years the unhappy King had been a captive, driven from prison to prison, Windsor being his last resting-place before his trial and death in London. Charles must have become aware that dangers were thickening round him, when, having refused to admit Denbigh bearing the last overtures of the Army, all ceremonies of State were omitted, his meals no longer being served to him on bended knee. After the tragedy at Whitehall, the body of the King was brought to Windsor and buried hurriedly one snowy February morning, in the vault below the choir, by the side of Henry VIII. At the Restoration £70,000 was voted by the Parliament to erect a fitting memorial, but for some unexplained reason his coffin could not be found, though two of the Lords who had carried his body to the grave were still living. Though the leaden coffin was identified in 1813, no monument has yet been raised to the most unfortunate if also the most unwise of British sovereigns.
His son, Charles II., employed Sir Christopher Wren to make additions to the palace. Much of this work still remains practically as it was in the days of the Merry Monarch, for whose dining-room (now called the State Ante-room) Verrio painted the ceiling and Grinling Gibbons carved the walls.
No monarch is more intimately associated with Windsor than George III., who loved the place which had been cordially disliked and neglected by his two predecessors. So complete had been the neglect, that the castle was quite unfit for habitation, obliging the Royal Family, during the process of repairs, to live in an ugly stuccoed building known as the Queen's Lodge, built on the site of the present royal stables. Owing to the minute chronicle of their daily events in the diary of Fanny Burney, we know exactly what the good commonplace King and Queen did and said during their residence at Windsor. So much had Queen Charlotte admired "Evelina," that she thought no greater honour could be done to the gifted authoress than to make her a dresser to her royal self, a condescension which almost overwhelmed shy Fanny Burney, who accepted the post, little dreaming of the drudgery it entailed. Everything went by routine in the Court life: the same things were done every day at precisely the same time they were done the day before, with a monotony which Thackeray declares must have rendered the life, frugal and virtuous as it was, stupid to a degree which he shuddered to contemplate. Poor King George spent the last ten years of his life, hopelessly insane and quite blind, confined in rooms overlooking the North Terrace, and was buried in the new tomb-house which he had cut in the solid chalk, under what is now known as the Albert Memorial Chapel.
George IV. carried on the repairs commenced by his father, living meanwhile in a lodge in the park. Over a million pounds was spent upon the alterations and furnishing of the royal apartments. When Sir Jeffry Wyattville, the architect to whom the work had been entrusted, had completed his task, Windsor Castle appeared exactly as it does to-day. The walls and towers had been repaired and refaced, the brick buildings within the walls had been cleared away, the Round Tower raised by forty feet so that it dominated the whole pile, and the present State apartments built on the south and eastern sides of the Upper Ward.
Though Windsor Castle cannot claim so fascinating or romantic a history as that of other royal palaces, yet it can boast that while its more picturesque rivals have either vanished or ceased their careers as palaces, it alone remains a royal residence with a story stretching back to the Normans. Majestic in its calm serenity, it remains, as Leigh Hunt used to say, "a place to receive monarchs in."
CHAPTER III
THE TOWER OF LONDON
There are no myths or legends connected with the building of London's great fortress, the clear light of history beats upon the erection of its walls. It was built by William the Conquerer, not as a protection for the city, but as a proof of his dominating power over the subdued but possibly troublesome citizens. Part of the Roman wall which encircled the city was removed, and the tower rose into being upon the easternmost corner of Saxon London, right on the shore of the River Thames, the great highway from the sea. Various additions were made by succeeding monarchs down to Edward III., until it assumed the shape we now see it, with the solid Norman keep in the centre, an inner wall with twelve towers, protected by a strong outer wall surrounded by a deep moat. Only four gateways gave entrance to the fortress, and those were strongly guarded by towers. Any enemy attempting to enter from Tower Hill had to force his way across three branches of the moat, with three successive towers before he could reach the inner wall of the citadel. There were three gateways from the river, a small postern gate for the use of State visitors, the main water gate, which earned the ominous title of Traitor's Gate, due to the frequent arrival of State prisoners, and another entrance east of the Traitor's Gate.