"I don't see how the king could have treated the poor cardinal badly after he gave him such a beautiful home," remarked Edith, as they entered the palace.
"Ah, well! perhaps he deserved it," said Miss Green, as they went up the grand stairway and through room after room filled with pictures, and some of the furniture of those old days.
They could see the beds on which had slept many royal persons. Around this furniture were drawn ropes so no one could touch it or sit upon the chairs. The floors were highly waxed, and in every room was a guardian or sort of policeman, who closely watched visitors to see that nothing was disturbed.
"Well, they did have a great number of rooms," said Eleanor, after they had walked through many bedchambers, anterooms, and reception-rooms.
"Yes," answered Miss Green, "they were necessary not only for the Royal Family itself, but for the many people who were always attached to the court.
"Here is the 'throne-room,'" she continued, "where the king or queen sat in that gilt chair which stands on a dais or platform raised several steps above the floor." Above the chair was a velvet canopy surmounted by a gilt crown. Usually the arms of England (the "Lion and the Unicorn") were embroidered in gold and coloured silks on the velvet background behind the throne. Here the kings and queens held their audiences, and saw those who wished to present some petition or ask some royal favour.
"This is one of the most splendid old-time 'banqueting-halls' in our country," said Miss Green, as they came into the great chamber with a high roof of great carved wood beams and windows of coloured glass. Around the walls were great stag heads, and over the entrance door was a gallery where the musicians played while guests ate dinner at the long tables. The guests sat on wooden benches or stools, while the persons of high rank occupied chairs at a table at the end of the hall, which was placed on a raised platform which separated them from those of inferior rank.
"Can't we see the big grape-vine now?" said Edith, as they left the palace itself.
Miss Green led the way through the rose-garden, and past Queen Mary's Bower, a shady and favourite walk of one of the queens, so shut in by trees that it looked like a green tunnel. "There is the vine-house," exclaimed Clarence, as they came to a long, low, glass house which covered the huge vine, nearly two hundred years old, the largest single vine in the world. The trunk looked like that of a small tree, and its branches, hanging thick with bunches of grapes, covered the glass roof. At various times its home had to be added to, and still the vine has to be constantly pruned to keep it within bounds.