Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/122

 coachman, filed a chink between his front teeth, to enable him to whistle to his nags in the orthodox manner. It was not a very high ambition, but it led Mr. Akers to a coach-box, and left him there firmly planted.

Up in the air again the crow darts, and a few quick pulses of his coal black wings bring him to Staines. Antiquaries derive the name of the town from a stone which marked the western bounds of the jurisdiction of the Corporation of London. Lord mayors and aldermen of old times used to make great days of the swan-upping, coming in gay barges on an August afternoon past Staines to their annual dinner at Medmenham. The Thames swans are chiefly the property of the Dyers' and Vintners' Companies. The birds build in the eyots about Hurley, and in the osier beds by the river, and firm structures of twigs cradle their huge eggs. The keepers receive a small sum for every cygnet that is reared, and it is their duty to guard the eggs, and to build the foundations of the nests. The mark of the Vintners' Company is two nicks, which mark originated the well known sign of the swan with two necks, or nicks. The upping used to begin on the Monday after Saint Peter's day.

Now the crow skims on his glossy wings to that little island meadow on the Thames where King John signed Magna Charta, forced by his barons, who had gathered together at Hounslow, under pretence of a tournament. There were first pronounced those memorable words:

"No free man shall be apprehended, imprisoned, disseised, outlawed, banished, or in any way destroyed; nor will we go upon him, nor will we send upon him, excepting by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. To no man will we sell, to no man will we deny or delay right and justice."

O high Court of Chancery! O patient and suffering suitors! O grimy law-haunted houses, dumb and blind in the midst of crowded streets, see how well our kings or nobles have obeyed this solemn clause! Lawyers, pay a pilgrimage to the green race meadow near Egham and repent of your sins and the shortcomings of tardy justice. That meeting at Runnymede ended as it began, with a tournament. In less than a year the faithless king had broken all his promises, and Louis of France had landed at Dover as the ally of the barons.

From Runnymede to the royal battlements of the "proud keep of Windsor," is but a short flight for the crow. The very prettiest legend about Windsor is connected with the little garden at the foot of the proud tower on which the crow first alights, and from which twelve tributary counties can be seen in clear weather. A young Scotch prince, sent to France to be out of the way of his dangerous uncle, the Duke of Albany, was captured off the coast of Norfolk, and sent to Windsor, where he remained a prisoner eighteen years. In his poem, the King's Quaire, the prince has described how he fell in love with Lady Jane Beaufort, as she walked in this garden, unconscious of the admiration of the young prisoner. The garden, he says, had an arbour in the corner, and was railed in with wands and close-knit hawthorn bushes; and in the midst of every arbour was "a sharp, green, sweet juniper." Suddenly, the prisoner's eyes fell on

Then the enraptured man describes the dress of the maiden; her golden hair fretted with pearls and fiery rubies, emeralds, and sapphires; on her head a chaplet of plumes, red, white, and blue, mixed with quaking spangles; about her neck a fine gold chain, with a ruby in the shape of a heart:

But suddenly, the fair fresh face passed under the boughs, out of sight, and then began the lover's torments, and his day darkened into night. Altogether, a prettier love story is not to be found in all the Castle history. James eventually married this incomparable lady, niece of the cardinal, and daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and took her back with him to Scotland. The accomplished prince was assassinated at Perth in 1437.

At the old deanery door, took place the parting between Richard the Second and his young Queen Isabella, then only eleven years of age. Froissart says, when the canons had chanted very sweetly, the king having made his offerings, he took the queen in his arms and kissed her twelve or thirteen times, saying, sorrowfully, "Adieu, madame, until we meet again." Then the queen began to weep, saying: "Alas, my lord, will you leave me here?" The king's eyes filled with tears, and he said: "By no means, Mamie; but I will go first, and you, ma chère, shall come afterwards." After that, the king and queen partook of wine and comfits at the deanery, with their court. Then the king stooped down and lifted the queen in his arms, and kissed her at least ten times, saying: "Adieu, ma chère, until we meet again," and placing her on the ground, kissed her again. "By our Lady," adds the chronicler, "I never saw so great a lord make so much of, or show such affection to, a lady, as did King Richard to his queen. Great pity it was they separated, for they never saw each other more." Soon afterwards came the death struggle at Pontefract, and the child became a widow.

It was in St. George's Chapel that, in 1813, the body of King Charles the First was discovered. Charles the Second had pretended to search for it, but probably did not wish to find it or to incur the cost of a sumptuous monument. The corpse had been carried to the grave in 1648, in a snow storm, and the dead monarch obtained secretly the name of "the white king" among his adherents, from the fact of the snow that day settling upon the pall. There was no service read over the body, as the