Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/125

. Sir, now I pray you that at our parting you will grant me three desires." The king, right sorrowfully weeping, said: "Madam, desire what ye will, I grant it." Then she asked the king, firstly, to pay all merchants on either side the sea, to whom she owed money; secondly, to fulfil all vows that she had made to different churches; and, thirdly, that when God called him hence, he would choose no other tomb but hers, and would lie by her side in the cloisters of Westminster. The king, weeping, said: "Madam, I grant all your desires." Then soon after the good lady made the sign of the cross on her breast, and recommending her youngest son, Thomas, to the king, gave up her spirit: which, says Froissart, "I firmly believe, was caught by the holy angels and carried to the glory of Heaven, for she had never done anything, by thought or deed, that could endanger her losing it. Thus died this queen of England, in the year of grace, 1369, the vigil of the Assumption of the Virgin, on the 15th of August."

Edward partly rebuilt the palace, his wise prelate, William of Wykeham, being the architect. He carved the huge inscription, "Hoc fecit Wykeham," which is still visible on the Winchester Tower; and when the king seemed inclined to resent the apparent arrogance, explained that the inscription meant "the castle had made him." The weak monarch, Henry the Sixth, was also born at Windsor, fulfilling the old prophecy—written probably years after the event:

The wicked Crook Back brought Henry's body to Windsor from Chertsey. A black marble slab in the chapel still marks his grave. He became the saint of Windsor. Rough ploughmen from the Berkshire villages came here, with tapers and images of wax; and forest keepers, their doublets stained with deer's blood and often with man's blood, used to adore a small chip of the bedstead of the saintly king, his spur, or his old red velvet hat, which was supposed to cure headaches. Prayers to him were inserted in the service books of the early part of the sixteenth century, and the old hat stood high above all the other Windsor relics.

The Royal Tomb House is another centre of great traditions. It was originally intended by Henry the Seventh for his tomb. Henry the Eighth, in the plenitude of his generosity, gave it to his favourite Wolsey, who began to rebuild it with all the lavish splendour in which he delighted. He had determined to descend into the darkness of a tomb, magnificent as that of the popes, and to lie in a sarcophagus worthy of the Pharaohs. But he begged little earth for charity, far away from that royal tomb, which was swept away in contempt by the Parliamentarians, who loathed such pomps and vanities. The upper part was sold as defaced brass, for six hundred pounds; and the black marble sarcophagus lay untenanted, till it was taken for the righteous purpose of covering Nelson's tomb in St. Paul's Cathedral. George the Third eventually constructed the vault beneath the Tomb House for himself and family.

Windsor Castle possesses two distinct relics of Quentin Matsys, the famous blacksmith of Antwerp. On the left of the altar in St. George's Chapel is a screen of Gothic iron, hammered out (carved out with a knife one would think) by Matsys for the tomb of Edward the Fourth. The king's coat of mail and jewelled surcoat used to hang near it, but the Puritans carried them off when they defaced the chapel in 1643. In the Queen's closet hangs the famous picture of the Misers, which proved Matsys an artist, and obtained him the daughter of a painter for a wife. The painting is hard, but it is of great excellence; and the details are highly curious. The faces are replete with character, but the meaning of their expression is disputed. Some think that both men are money-lenders, rejoicing in an especially hard bargain; many, that one is a merchant, and the other a partner or clerk who is outwitting him. After all, the picture's traditional name probably expresses the real intention.

There is a tradition that the upper ward of Windsor Castle was built by Edward the Third from the French king's ransom, and the lower ward remodelled from the ransom of the Scotch king; John was shut up in the Round Tower, formerly called La Rose, and David in the south-west tower of the upper ward.

Henry the Eighth used to hawk in the Great Park, and there too in the long green glades he held his archery meetings. Years after her father's death, Elizabeth used to come to the park to shoot deer with her cross bow. not unfrequently cutting their throats with her own hunting knife. There is one more tradition of Windsor worth remembering. A public-house in Peascod-street, called the Duke's Head, was once the house of Villiers. Duke of Buckingham, the Zimri of Dryden. Charles the Second used to come from the Castle, and walk with him to Filbert's, the house of Nell Gwynne.

Honourable Friend!

What is required of Members of Parliament is, that they should be faithful servants of the people and of the crown; failing which, not only the public will suffer, but the crown, in the absence, interception, or perversion of a truthful account of the real state of the country; for, as in the case of the human body, it is necessary that the head comprehend the wants of it, in order to take measures to supply them, so it is with the body politic. And with the former, the agents best adapted to administer to its necessities are sought out. They do not stand on platforms, and overwhelm folks with long speeches, often "rivers of words, and drops of