James II turned the Tomb House into a chapel for the practice of his own religion, and its ceiling was decorated by Verrio. At Windsor he received the Papal Nuncio. On the king's downfall a revolutionary crowd therefore attacked the Chapel, destroyed the windows, and left the interior in ruin. Further alterations planned by William III were not carried out. Queen Anne's work was in the Park. In her reign Swift was often at Windsor with his friend Harley, the Secretary of State, supping with Prior and Arbuthnot, playing twelvepenny picquet and winning seven shillings at it, putting his thumb out of joint by boxing Patrick's ear for carelessness, riding out in the forest on "the finest day in the world"—October 4, 1711—"a noble caravan of us", Maids of Honour, the Duke and Duchess of Shrewsbury, Arbuthnot, and others, some driving, some riding, and Swift on horseback in a coat of light camlet, faced with red velvet, and silver buttons. On September 1, 1711, Swift came to Windsor with a basket of fruit for his friend Lewis from Lord Peterborough's garden at Parson's Green. "I durst not eat any fruit, but one fig," he writes to Stella, and asks, "Does Stella never eat any? What, no apricots at Donnybrook? Nothing but claret and ombre? I envy people maunching and maunching peaches and grapes, and I not daring to eat a bit. My head is pretty well, only a sudden turn any time makes me giddy for a moment, and sometimes it feels very stuffed; but if it grows no worse, I can bear it very well. I take all opportunities of walking; and we have a delicious park here just joining to the castle, and an avenue in the great park very wide, and two miles long, set with a double row of elms on each side. Were you ever at Windsor? I was once a great while ago; but had quite forgotten it."
The two first Georges neglected the Castle—though the second placed there Windsor's last prisoner, the Maréchal de Belleisle—to such an extent that George III had to build the "Queen's Lodge" for himself and his family. This building is immortalized by the king's remark to Fanny Burney, a Maid of Honour to his Queen Charlotte, "Was there ever such stuff as much of Shakespeare? ... only of course one must not say so"; but it is now pulled down. St. George's Chapel had been completely neglected, probably because there was no need of it, for many years before George III began to renovate and repave it in 1787. He removed the tracery and glass of the east window, in order to exalt a new picture of the Resurrection in painted glass. The walls were then stained to harmonize with the heavy colouring of this picture, and finally the Chapel was darkened by the blocking up of the clerestory, to destroy the painful contrast between the sunlit walls and the glass. George III also restored the ruined Tomb House and dug a royal vault beneath it. Under George IV the monument to the Princess Charlotte of Wales was placed in the chantry at the west end of the north aisle. Two years before, Wyatville (né Wyatt) began to rebuild the Castle. The incongruous buildings and external additions of the Restoration were removed. The entrance gateway to the upper ward, with its two towers of Lancaster and York, was made. The height of the Round Tower was increased by thirty-nine feet and a flag turret added. The old houses under the Curfew, Garter, and Salisbury towers were cleaned away. Thus in four years the exterior of the Castle, shaken more free of the little town clambering and clustering about it, was brought to its present state, which may or may not have blasted the hopes of the author of this epigram:
Let restless George who can leave nothing quiet,
Change if he will the good old name of Wyatt:
But let us hope that their united skill
May not make Windsor Castle Wyatville.
The Tomb House was converted by Queen Victoria and Sir Gilbert Scott into the Albert Memorial Chapel, on the death of the Prince Consort in 1861. As a memorial to the same prince, the mullions were restored to the east window of St. George's Chapel in 1863. Queen Victoria lived much at Windsor, and in her time the interior of the Castle attained its present height of costliness and domesticity. The majesty without and the splendour within answer fully to the expectations usually founded upon a reading of history and a sober loyalty to the Crown.
ETON COLLEGE FROM WINDSOR
WINDSOR FOREST AND PARK
In the Conqueror's time and before, it must have been hard to say what was Windsor Forest, or what was not, on the south side of the middle course of the Thames. After choosing the mound of Windsor for a castle, William enlarged the Forest so that it included a great part of Berkshire, as far west as Hungerford; some of Buckinghamshire, which is on the north side; parts of Middlesex, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire, and in Surrey both banks of the Wey as far as Guildford. The Forest and the river surrounded and isolated the Castle on every side. The Forest was named after Windsor from early times, but was also sometimes called Oakingham or Wokingham Forest. All this wild virgin country of heath, swamp, tangled wood, and high land held many deer for the king's hunting, and fattened many swine. Partly by the number of swine feeding in it the value of a forest was estimated; and the right to send swine among the acorns of Windsor was retained or acquired by many of the dwellers at the edge of the Forest or within it, from the boor to the nuns of Ankerwyke near Datchet.